Into the Void (The Godhunter, Book 10)

Into the Void

Amy Sumida

Copyright © 2013 Amy Sumida

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10:149527103X

ISBN-13: 978-1495271038

DEDICATION

For Glory Ebeling who, despite the insanity of outside influences and the extreme differences in our opinions on occasion, has remained my friend and biggest fan. Thank you for picking me up soup when I was sick, for never forgetting my birthday, and for rushing to my side when I thought my world was ending.

More Books by Amy Sumida

Available on Amazon.com: http://astore.amazon.com/amysum-20

The Godhunter Series(in order)

Godhunter

Of Gods and Wolves

Oathbreaker

Coming Soon in the Series:

Marked by Death

Green Tea and Black Death

A Taste for Blood

The Tainted Web

Series Split:

These books can be read together or separately

Harvest of the Gods  &  A Fey Harvest

(Into the Void)  &  Out of the Darkness

Other Books

The Magic of Fabric

Feeding the Lwas: A Vodou Cookbook

There's a Goddess Too

The Vampire-Werewolf Complex

Enchantress

Pronunciation Guide

Aodh: Ee

Aoife: Ee-fa

Arach: Air-roc

Bearach: BEH-ruck

Carus: Care-us

Cian: Key-an

Estsanatlehi(Mrs E): Es-tan-AHT-lu-hee

Fionnuala: Finn-noo-lah

Froekn: Fro-kin

Gruach: Groo-ah

Hugin: Hew-gan

Huitzilopochtli: Weet-seal-oh-POACHED-lee

Intare: In-tar-ay

Kanaloa: Kah-nah-low-ah

Kirill: Key-reel

Meilyr: May-ler

Mimir: Mee-meer

Munin: Mew-nin

Nephthys: Nep-th-es

Nyavirezi: Nee-yah-veer-ez-ee

Re: Rah

Rouva: Roo-vah

Scotaidh: SCO-tee

Shehaquim: Shah-ha-keem

Tima: Tee-mah

Tlaloc: T-la-lock

Tsohanoai(Mr. T): So-ha-noe-ayee

Vidar: Vee-dar

Author's Note

Into the Void
is part of the second set of books in the series split and for those of you who may have leaped ahead in the series, I will explain. Vervain is now in possession of a ring that allows here to travel back in time. She makes use of it to travel between the God/Human Realms and the Faerie Realm so that she is essentially in both realms all the time. Because of this, I have taken the liberty of splitting up her adventures into two books, one in the God/Human Realms and one in the Faerie Realm. They are meant to be read together, jumping back and forth with Vervain when she travels between the realms but they are two individual stories and may be read separately, just be sure to read them in order for the best experience. I've had a lovely recommendation from a reviewer(Thank you, “Constant Reader” on Amazon) to put in a symbol to indicate when Vervain is jumping to another realm and the books should be switched. So to make things easier, whenever you see this symbol:

>O<

switch books. Or, like I've said, you can read them individually. Either way, thank you so much to all of my loyal readers, you inspire me to keep Vervain fighting and as you know, she's not a woman who gives up easily.

The Void was a place of darkness, endless and impenetrable but it was exactly where I wanted to be.

“
It's alright,” Odin's voice was a cut across my heart. “You can let go now.”

And then he was there, standing before me, whole and healthy. He even had both of his amazing peacock blue eyes. His skin glowed softly and his smile was radiant. He was dressed in one of his old tunics, sleeveless to show off his muscular arms. He looked powerful and vibrant. Behind him was only murky darkness, a black mist that I couldn't see beyond.

“Let go of what?” I reached a hand out to him but he stepped back away from it.

“
Me
, Vervain, let go of me,” he waved a hand behind him to indicate the dark. “It feels good here, I'm content, and I want you to stop chasing me. You'll waste your life on research and your mind on thoughts of possibilities that aren't in fact possible.”

“
No, you didn't give up on me,” I gritted my teeth. “I won't give up on you. I'm going to find you.”

“
No you're not,” his smile turned sad, “and I want you to know it's okay. I didn't die so you could mourn me, I died so you could live. Live, Vervain. It's okay to go on without me, I give you my blessing.”

“
Mom,” another voice cut through the dark, pulling me away from Odin.

“
No,” I lunged for my dead husband but he dispersed like smoke, his beautiful eyes the last to fade away.

“
Mom, wake up.”

I blinked away the dream and looked up into the deep blue eyes of my son, mine and Odin's son from a past life, Vidar. He smiled anxiously and helped me into a seated position. I looked around with a little confusion, I was on a couch in the sitting room within the library of Pride Palace. There were no dark shadows anywhere and no Odin.

“Mom, are you alright?” Vidar's long dark hair swung forward as he moved to sit beside me. It hit me in the face and I batted it away fondly.

“
Yes, I'm fine,” I rolled my neck, trying to relax the muscles tightened by my dream. “I guess I must have dozed off.”

“
I found the book,” he opened a leather satchel on the floor and pulled out a large book bound in blue leather.

On its cover was a silver nine-pointed star. The same symbol that I held in my heart now. Or, if you listened to Faerie(which I only did because she got really annoying when I didn't), the symbol that had replaced my heart. Vidar put the book on my lap and smiled proudly. He'd been searching for it for awhile now, ever since Munin had showed me a memory of Odin receiving it from Mimir. This was the book that held the spells that Odin had used to bring me back from Hvergelmir, the Viking Well of Souls, after I had died as Sabine.

“Thank you,” I gave his hand a quick squeeze and then opened the book. “What the hell?” I gaped at the pages. “What language is this?”

“
Old Norse,” Vidar laughed as he peered over my shoulder. “You didn't expect it to be in English, did you?”

“
Yes, damn it,” I huffed. “I'm an American, I expect everything to be automatically translated into English for my convenience. And if someone doesn't understand English, all you have to do is shout it at them.”

“
I can read it for you,” Vidar laughed and pulled the book into his lap. “What should I look for?”

“
Anything to do with souls and the void,” I sighed in relief.

“
Well that's easy,” he chuckled. “The book is on soul magic, everything in it has to do with souls.”

“
Soul magic?” I frowned. “What else can you do with the soul besides put it back in a body?”

“
Really? You're asking me that after the whole Andrasta thing?”

I shivered. Andrasta had been host to a hungry, lonely magic called the Darkness. It had needed fey elements to gain power, basically it needed to eat fey life-force(not souls, mind you but they were similar). Withered husks were all that were left when it was finished, no elemental spark to return to the source, nothing. They were consumed like food.

“I don't think I want to know,” I whispered. “Just see if you can find something on bringing a soul back from the Void.”

“
Okay,” he nodded and started skimming the pages. “This might take awhile. What about the book Lucifer wrote? Did you find out anything useful yet?”

“
Treatise of Territories,
” I pulled it out from where I'd hidden it beneath a cushion.

“
Mom, have you told Trevor and the others about this yet?” He eyed the cushion it had been hiding under.

“
No,” I sighed, “I know I should tell them.”

“
It's going to get difficult to explain when you start looking for Lucifer,” Vidar agreed. “Just tell them, they'll understand.”

“
Who's looking for Lucifer?” Roarke laughed as he struck a pose in the doorway to the sitting room. “That would be a great movie title, wouldn't it? Looking for Lucifer.”

I smiled at him and shook my head fondly. The cat-sidhe had recently done me a great service and the end result of it had left him a changed man, quite literally. Faerie transmuted his basic makeup and turned him from an earth cat-sidhe into the first fire cat-sidhe in existence. He'd had to hide the changes from me for awhile because it would have interfered with time.

The Ring of Remembrance, left to me by my fey father, Finnian (fey father Finnian, doesn't that sound like a good-looking Irish priest? The fey Father Finnian) allowed me to travel between the realms, returning to the exact time and place I'd left them from. To put it simply, I could be in both the God/Human Realms and the Faerie Realm continuously. Every time I left one realm, I would ask the ring to return me to the exact time I'd left the previous one but I couldn't take anyone along for the ride, couldn't use the ring to save a life, and couldn't return to a realm during a time I'd already experienced. Well I could, it was kind of what the ring was created for, but if I did travel back to a time and realm I'd already experienced, I'd simply merge with my past self and experience things all over again, without the option to change them. This, like I mentioned, was the reason for the ring's creation. The fey lived a long time and it could get hard to remember the past. The ring allowed them to go back and re-experience it.

Roarke however, traveled normally between the realms but Faerie's time always moves faster than time in the Human or God Realms. A day in the God Realm equals about a month in Faerie, so Roarke had actually been a fire cat-sidhe long before I went back and experienced those events for myself. Confusing? Try living it. Anyway, he had to hide his eyes behind a glamor because his once brilliant green cat eyes were now a fiery red, and if I'd seen that, it would have blown my mind, possibly literally. We didn't really know for sure.

But I knew now and so his eyes were out in full force, burning with the heat of the new element that gave him life.

“
I'm
looking for Lucifer,” I answered him. “He may be able to help in my quest to bring Odin back from the Void.”

“
You're going to bring Odin back to life?” Roarke perked up. “Fascinating. Can I come with you to meet the devil?”

“
I don't think so,” I laughed. “I still haven't told Trevor, Kirill, or Azrael yet. I didn't want them thinking I'd lost my mind, or worse, thinking that I loved Odin more than them.”

“
Well, I'd recommend you tell them with all haste,” Roarke was back to leaning against the wall. He started to casually inspect his pointed fingernails.

“
Why is that?” I shot a suspicious glance at Vidar but he just narrowed his gaze on the cat-sidhe.

“
Well, I'd think it would be obvious,” Roarke rolled his eyes. “If you're looking for Lucifer, what better way of finding him than asking his son to introduce you?”

“
His son?” I frowned.

“
Azrael,” Roarke gave me a look that clearly said I was an idiot. “The Angel of Death. Your
boyfriend
.”