Petriah - old partial story

“Halloween comin’ round,” the old man said. 
 
Petriah stood, hands in jacket pockets, gazing out over the wind-ravaged desert as gusts pulled wisps out of her tightly twisted coif. 
 
“Yes,” she replied, “Not long now.”
 
Sand blasted the vagrant in the face and he shuffled off, coughing and brushing at his clothes and beard. 
 
Pet turned her back to the gas station where her shift had just ended, and watched dark clouds blow in from the west. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to return home or take off for a while. All sorts of unpleasant things had been showing up in town lately. Mostly just hints and threats so far, but it was only a matter of time before they showed themselves. It was her inexorable birthright. 
 
Opening the door of her beat up old Pontiac Grand Prix, Petriah felt the first drops of rain from thunderheads not even overhead yet. Suddenly a quiet evening at home sounded very nice. She got in, the soft scent of decomposing upholstery greeting her. Her tense shoulders began to relax. Before she closed the door, the old man came up to the car. 
 
“Don’t forget,” he said. “Halloween.”
 
Pet smiled. “I never forget.”
 
There were too many like him out here, feeble of mind, living off of handouts and garbage. No family to care for them, or none that cared. Many of them knew more about the real world than the well-fed, though. 
 
She drove away from the gas station, from the crossroads in the middle of nowhere that seemed so like the edge of the world. On the freeway Petriah couldn’t help pouring on the speed, and it was amazing she got to her apartment without being stopped. 
 
Inside she locked and bolted the door, closed the blinds, and put on some light clothes. It wasn’t cooling off yet, but she needed candlelight. It wasn’t much good against the darker things, but it chased away the bad memories. Pet didn’t want to be reminded of her “duties” right now. Some mellow music, and she could forget for a few hours the compulsions that brought her face to face with nightmare horrors. Petriah dozed off, unaware of the eyes at her windows.

The rainstorm passed, and the full moon shone in the window onto a sleeping figure. Fine hair spilled over her pillow, twisting in curls and waves when she shifted. So deeply asleep was she that though she started slightly when her secondary senses caught the presence, she didn’t wake. A nightmare ravaged her frantic mind: faces, voices, but mostly an overwhelming sense of horror. Finally she struggled awake. Someone powerful was near.
 
Petriah slid out of her folding cot, careful to be silent as she could. The moon at her back lit half the room, but darkened the shadows in the corners. There was no time to waste. Pulling on shoes and a leather jacket, she grabbed a flashlight and ran out into the night.
 
Leaving the flashlight off and letting her sense guide her, Petriah stayed in the light of the full moon and avoided shadows, where the dark things might lurk. She didn’t know where she was being pulled until she stopped beneath a balcony of an apartment building. A small figure was climbing over the railing, and finally dropped beside her. When the small person looked up, it proved to be a little boy, about ten. He yelped in fear and tried to run when he saw Pet. 
 
She grabbed his bulky backpack and whispered as loudly as she dared, “Wait, I’m a friend! Who are you?”
 
The boy stopped struggling, but eyed her suspiciously. He looked rather slim and pale, with dark straight hair. 
 
“I don’t know who you are, but you can’t stop me from running away. I’ve done it before.” 
He looked nervous, so Petriah kept a hold on his backpack. 
 
“There are bad things afoot tonight and I have an idea you know about them,” she said. 
 
As if to keep the boy from telling anything, a shadow of cloud crept across the moon. The darkness was so utter, so absolute, Petriah knew it was supernatural. The boy screamed. The backpack fell – he’d been pulled out of it. Petriah yelled, turning on the flashlight. It lit nothing but a blank void. 
 
Petriah stared into the gloom that surrounded her, but could see nothing apart from her own shaking hand holding the flashlight. 
 
It had to be some sort of trick, a hallucination or… what? One moment she’d been standing in full moonlight in the center of town, the next she was nowhere. And the little boy she was talking to had been torn from her grasp. He had been the source of the power Petriah had sensed in her apartment, she was certain. 
 
She had to find him. Not only was he a possible ally in the battle against the evil forces on earth, but he was in terrivle danger. The beings that had stolen him were gaining strength day by day as Hallowe’en neared, and on that night everyone susceptible to their influence would be completely controlled. Petriah would be outnumbered. She needed an ally. 
 
Pet began walking, though there seemed to be nothing but swirling mirk beneath her feet. She had a sinking feeling she was no longer on earth. This was confirmed a moment later when she came to a door, iron-banded oak, that was apparently not attached to a building. Petriah cautiously pushed it open. 
 
The room was low-ceilinged and full of long tables with benches, mostly full of various cheerful persons eating, drinking and talking. The smell of food and the smoking fire in the big fire pit mingled with bodily scents, and laughter nearly drowned out the musician playing guitar in the corner. At a high bar, and aproned 50-ish man filled wooden tankard for customers. Petriah walked straight to him, attracting odd glances from the medieval–dressed folk about her. 
 
“Where am I?” she whispered desperately. 
 
“You are in my tavern, in the town of Anderose, on the estate of Lord Edward Kendrick. I am Jarn Reseck. You’re looking for a little boy, aren’t you?” 

“Where's the boy? Petriah asked in a low, tense voice.

	“He hasn't come through here, but he was passing nearby not long ago. Such ones leave a trail, you know,” the tavern keeper replied, his  eyes kind.
Pet felt a thrill of cold fear, and then flushed with anger. 

“I don't understand how I got here, or how I'm supposed to follow anyone through nothingness! I'm not the type to trust anyone right away, but I don't seem to have any choice here. What's going on?”

The music in the corner had died away, but suddenly it began again right behind Petriah. She turned to see a minstrel in crimson and dark brown clothes strumming a lute as he came to sit by her at the bar. She remained standing. 

“The doom has come upon us, cried the lady of the night,” he sang softly.

“I'm pretty sure that's not how it goes.” Pet rolled her eyes. She turned back to the tavern keeper, but he had gone.

“My name is Aurion Harper,” the musician said. I can guide you in your travels.”

“Why should I follow you?”

He strummed another chord and cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have anywhere else to go?” He had a point, she had to admit.

“You know where the boy went, then?”

“I know everything. I get around a bit.”

Pet did not trust him. He acted a little too self-assured, and had a build that did not generally go with mild-mannered musicians. He would pass for a soldier in other clothes.

Aurion laughed at her obviously critical gaze, his shortish brown hair falling into his eyes. 

“Okay, let's go,” Petriah said, and scowled at him. 

The man put the lute in a case and left it, grabbed a cloak and large pack, and walked out without another word. She followed.

The Void closed around them, blocking the light from the tavern doorway. Petriah gasped, shocked again at the cold. The lutanist/guide Aurion was nowhere to be seen. A hand grabbed her arm and she spun to see him laughing.  With a glare she threw aside his hand. 

“Where to, now?” she asked, avoiding his gaze.

“Whatever world your heart desires.”

“I'm tracking a powerful young boy. You said you could help me.”

Aurion grinned mischievously. “You know nothing of world-walking then? That does put your life in my hands.”

Petriah shuddered and backed away.

“Come, now, I was teasing,” he went on. “It's tricky out here, I wouldn't leave you alone.” When Pet stopped, he held out a hand. “Come, he isn't far. We'll have a hell of a time escaping with him, though.”

Despite her misgivings, she raised her head defiantly and grabbed his hand. 

“If you mislead me, I'm taking you down,” she whispered.

The sudden light was blinding. They were in wide, sterile corridors lined with clear-walled cells. Metallic humanoid figures moved at one end of the right corridor, and Aurion and Petriah ducked quickly out of sight.

“How will we find him?” Petriah murmured. Aurion pointed. Armored figures were approaching from the right corridor. Before they reached the two trespassers, they stopped at one of the cells. Passing through the wall in some mysterious way, one brought out a prisoner. It was the boy.

“You're on your own,” Aurion whispered to her. With a quick peck on her cheek, he was gone. Petriah wiped the kiss off and cursed.

Pet shadowed the guards at a safe distance. They were careful with the boy, almost respectful. They led him to a large, low-ceilinged hall, where sat two people: one of the silver-skinned folk and a dark-haired, handsome human. 

Petriah stared. The resemblance between the two was unmistakable. Were they brothers? Or father and son? No, the young man was much too young. He couldn't be over twenty. Yet he smiled when the boy was brought near, and clapped him on the shoulder. Through the transparent door the conversation was lost, but Petriah inwardly cheered as her mysterious child repeatedly resisted questioning and coercion. 

Finally his guards moved him back toward the door, and Petriah got out of sight around a corner. To her surprise, a small shape shot past her hiding place, followed by the shouts of outraged men. Petriah turned and ran after the fleeing boy, for the guards were right behind her. When she came to a fork in the corridors, she heard a small voice calling quietly.

“This way! Follow me!”

She caught up to the boy and jogged along beside him, panting, as he spoke. 

“I can't access the Void in this place, but I think I know the way out.”

Petriah felt she would burst with questions, but she had no breath to ask. They ran past people who stared with silver eyes, and came at last to a doorway like a vault door, next to which was a desk with a control panel. The operators were gone. 

“I gave them a false memory,” the boy said, with a lopsided grin. He led Pet to the vault door, which opened slowly to reveal open country. “By the way, my name's Oliver.” He grasped her hand, and darkness closed over her again.

 

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