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.

  Chapter One

  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.”

  Chapter Two

  “How did I not know this?” I looked from Vidar to Roarke and back again.

  “You are not curious enough,” Roarke lifted a dark brow over a burning cat eye and crossed his arms over his T-shirt. It was strange to see him dressed so casually, in the Faerie realm he could be flamboyant. In fact, he'd been buying wild outfits in the Human Realm and wearing them back in Faerie to increase that flamboyance. Funny thing was, all those shiny shirts and rock star leggings fit right in with the faeries.

  “Azrael's the one I talk to the most,” I shook my head as Roarke stretched his lean frame upwards. “We've talked for hours.”

  “About his family?” Vidar looked skeptical.

  “I just assumed he'd tell me if he had any,” I frowned. What kind of woman doesn't ask about her boyfriend's family? I had a horrible clenching in my stomach. “I'm such an idiot and a bit of an asshole.”

  “Your words, my Queen,” Roarke smirked.

  “Tell me again why I enjoy having you around?” I grimaced at the cat-sidhe.

  “Because I'm all the fun of a cat in the body of a gorgeous man,” He struck a pose, hands on hips and chest extended.

  “No, that's not it,” I chewed my lip as he deflated.

  “Your words, they wound,” he held a hand to his chest. Sometimes having Roarke around was like living with an out of work Shakespearean actor. A very bawdy one.

  “Better than her claws,” Vidar shrugged and looked over to me. “So you'll tell Trevor?”

  “Tell Trevor what?” Trevor stepped into the room right on cue, looking amazing in a pair of worn jeans and a black T-shirt which read: Guns don't kill people, Werewolves kill people. His biceps strained the poor fabric and the words were a little stretched out from the muscles in his chest but he insisted the shirt fit him perfectly and who was I to argue when he looked so damn good? And that's not even mentioning his superb ass. I think it's a werewolf thing, I've yet to meet one with a flat ass.

  “I'll just take this back with me,” Vidar slid the book back in his bag and stood. “I'll let you know when I find anything useful, Mom.”

  “Okay, thank you,” I kissed him on the cheek and he left with a quick nod to Trevor. I looked meaningfully at Roarke but he just continued to stand there. “Roarke!”

  “What?” He blinked innocently.

  “Get out of here so I can talk to Trevor,” I snapped.

  “Well fine,” he huffed and stalked out, “I know when I'm not wanted.”

  “Evidently not,” I griped to his retreating back.

  “What's going on?” Trevor took a seat beside me on the couch.

  “I've kept something from you,” I sighed. “I didn't want you to think I'd lost my mind, or even that I didn't love you as much as I did Odin.”

  “You've been trying to find a way to bring him back,” he stated frankly.

  “How did you know?” I gaped at him.

  “Vervain,” he laughed. “We all know. Come on, we're not idiots. You like books and all but spending every free moment in the library is kind of excessive and then Estsanatlehi started visiting all the time and that clinched it. You both want to find your dead men.”

  “Well damn,” I sat back in relief. “I guess I should have told you sooner.”

  “Yeah, you should have,” he took my hand. “I know this has been hard for you, losing Odin not so long after you found him again, but maybe it's time to let him go.”

  Let me go, the dream echoed in my head.

  “But I think I've found something,” I held out Lucifer's book and flipped it to the page that talked about the Void. “I want to talk to Lucifer.”

  “Vervain,” Trevor sighed. “Even if he can tell you about the Void, even if you can find a way to get there without killing yourself, how are you going to bring Odin back with you?”

  “That' where Odin's book comes in,” I gestured to the open door, “the one Vidar just took with him. It's the book Odin used to bring me back from Hvergelmir.”

  “Are you sure he'd want you to bring him back?” Trevor asked after a long pause.

  I died so you could live.

  “Would you want me to bring you back if I could?” I countered.

  “I don't know,” Trevor frowned. “Our relationship is so much more different than any of your others. I'm bonded to you, I'll follow you into death when you die but if I were to die first? I don't know, maybe I'
d want you to bring me back. Living without you would be unbearable, I doubt being dead without you would be much different.”

  “Thank you,” I squeezed his hand, “for the honest answer. So now do you see why I can't give up on him? I would do the same for you, I've already gone into Hell for you.”

  “Technically you went into Niflheim,” he gave me a cheeky grin, “I wouldn't want to think of you actually going into my Aunt Hel. That sounds a bit messy... or pornographic. Both options kind of disgust me.”

  “Gross,” I scrunched up my face at him. “I try to say something romantic to you and you make it gross.”

  “I know you love me enough to go through Hell for me,” he let go of my hand so he could slide his arm around my back and pull me closer. “I'm just not sure if Odin would want you risking yourself to save him. I mean, he died to keep you alive and now you want to risk your life to bring him back?”

  “It doesn't have to be like that,” I frowned, Trevor was echoing my dream perfectly. Had it been a dream or had Odin found a way to reach out to me and warn me? “I'll be careful and get all the information before I do anything.”

  “Promise me,” Trevor met my eyes with serious intensity. “I know you always say you can't live your life worried about the ties you have with others but it should be something that you take into consideration. You have a lot of people that would be worse off without you here. If nothing else, Odin's death should have shown you that. Odin knew when he placed himself between you and that blade that he was dying for all of us, not just you. Don't let his sacrifice be for nothing.”

  “I know,” I burrowed into his chest, placing my ear against him so I could hear his heartbeat. “As much as I refuse to run away from a fight simply because my death would hurt others, I've never been one to actively seek danger either. I promise I'll be as careful as possible and if it looks too dangerous, I won't do it.”