Exile (The Oneness Cycle) (11 page)

Richard rang the bell, and the foursome stood back to wait for someone to come to the door. It was while they waited that Tyler became aware of a sensation in the air—something much like what he had felt sitting next to Richard, but not quite so expansive. It was like something was present and active in the atmosphere all around them, but whatever it was could not be seen or heard, only felt. He glanced at Chris but couldn’t tell what his friend was feeling or thinking.

Tyler narrowed his eyes and focused on the front door. The Oneness was unnerving. He wasn’t sure he liked this introduction into their world—or the fact that it seemed his world and theirs were one and the same, and he had simply been unaware of it up until now.

The door swung open, and the sensation grew so strong that Tyler took a step back to avoid being knocked off his feet. And he knew what it was.

Personality.

For an instant there in the driveway, edged up against a faded blue Volvo, he could feel the force of a personality shaped and infused by the power of individual souls linked together, still distinct yet One. It knocked the wind from his lungs.

“Won’t you come in?” the young woman in the door asked.

Richard and Mary had already stepped inside. Chris was following but had paused on the doorstep to see what was keeping Tyler.

“Yeah … thanks, I’m coming,” he managed.

The tidal wave of personality had somehow ebbed. He was aware of it still there, still surging in the air like water, but it was beyond his reach again. The house seemed quiet when he stepped inside.

Beyond a narrow entryway full of running shoes and rubber boots, lined with a long horizontal coat rack that was mostly empty thanks to the time of year, the house widened into a common room. It looked as though every possible wall had been knocked out in order to open up the floor. Couches, arranged in square configurations, surrounded several coffee tables. Chairs and reading lamps took up corners. There was plenty of floor space left over. Some of the seating was occupied; six people looked up with curious, welcoming eyes as the newcomers entered.

A middle-aged man wearing a grey sweater and glasses approached, holding out his hand. He shook Richard’s hand warmly, greeted Mary like a long-lost sister, and welcomed Chris and Tyler. “I’m David,” he said. “Please, come have a seat. Sharon’s gone to make you coffee … or would you prefer something else?”

“Coffee’s fine, thank you,” Mary said, and the others nodded. “We can’t stay long.”

“Well, I must say I’m surprised to see you. It was good to hear your voice this morning, but I didn’t think you were going to follow it up with a visit!” David’s eyes twinkled as he ushered them to one of the couch-and-table clusters. A young man, about eighteen or nineteen, scuttled out of the way, taking a book with him. He gestured for Tyler to take his seat before vanishing into another room. “But don’t take that as a hint. We would love to see more of you. You’re an isolated crew.”

“We try to stay focused,” Mary said. “But maybe you’re right. It’s good to see you too, David.”

She sat. Tyler noticed that she held herself erect, proud like a queen. She had been so worried and harried ever since he’d first met her that he hadn’t noticed how attractive she was, or how much dignity there was in the small one’s carriage. Something about her reminded him of Diane, and yet she was not like her at all. This was a woman who ran from nothing, who knew and had fully embraced her identity and purpose.

Another woman, who might have been David’s wife—were any of these people married?—emerged carrying a mug of coffee in each hand; the eighteen-year-old whose seat Tyler had taken followed her with two more. They were handed to the guests, and the woman disappeared and quickly reappeared with another for David. Both vanished again, and Tyler noticed the other inhabitants of the room had likewise exited. He wondered why.

“Now then,” David said. “I don’t think you’re here because the phone call made you miss the past. Can I help you with something?”

“I hope so,” Mary said. Richard leaned forward slightly, as though he was expecting something to happen. Mary met David’s eyes.

“I want you to tell me how to find the hive.”

Chapter 9

“Mary …” David drew the word out slowly. She watched him, searching his face, his body language, for any clue to his thoughts. They were Oneness, and they had a long history together, and yet she had never entirely learned to read him.

He sighed. “The hive is in our territory.”

“We are Oneness,” Mary said. “What is yours is also ours. I can’t say I know why, but the plan seems to have led us here, David.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I am not trying to stop you. But the hive’s power is not something to face unprepared. We’ve lost people. I told you.”

“I have faced terrible things before,” Mary said quietly. She kept her eyes fixed on his face, though he flicked his glance away. Some of those memories were shared. David had been there. The bombing, the fire. The hounding. Witchcraft unleashing violence and madness. The enemy was no trifling opposition. Demons were just the beginning. What they could do in conjunction with humans was far, far worse.

The last two decades in the fishing village had been a welcome respite. Warm, quiet, a balance of sadness and victory. Nothing like the early days.

Not until April disappeared.

For a moment Mary let her eyes lower. She closed them and breathed a prayer for April. She was still convinced that her friend was not dead—and yet, in some strange way, the connection between them felt weaker than it ever had before. The sense of weakening was so clear as she reached out in spirit that she trembled inside.

April. April was why they were here.

“One of ours has gone missing,” Mary said, raising her eyes again. “We’ve tried everything to find her. Things have been dark … she’s been impossible to track. But I think the pieces are coming together now. I think the hive may be responsible for her disappearance.”

“That does not necessarily mean you should go in,” David pointed out. “Even if they did take her, it’s unlikely they’re keeping her here. Are you sure she isn’t …”

“She isn’t dead,” Mary hastily answered. “Yet. Please, David, tell us what you know. We’re not asking you to send anyone in with us. We only want to find out what we can learn.”

David leaned back, resting his hand on the armrest of the couch he occupied alone. “I don’t want to send you to your deaths. And it might well come to that. Mary, in twenty years I have never seen anything like this. It is far, far bigger than we can handle. We’re in defensive mode—just trying to hold things together and beat back the darkness if it starts to spread. But we can’t attack this. It would take a force a thousand times bigger than any cell.” He glanced over at Richard, ignoring the boys. “A million times bigger than yours.”

“Point taken,” Mary said. “But you know the old saying: ‘Despise not the day of small things.’ We aren’t going to attack. Just learn.”

David shook his head. “You can’t do it. You’ll never even get in.”

“We just need to know where it is, David.”

He leaned back again and surveyed her carefully. Her inner response to his scrutiny was unexpected: for a moment she felt unsafe.

But that was nonsense. This man was Oneness.

And yet … hadn’t he cut off Reese?

What kind of person would even think to do such a thing?

Taking a determined sip of coffee, Mary forced herself to shake off the thought and the premonition that had prompted it. It was only the memories that made her feel uncomfortable with him—the history they shared that both had spent two decades trying to forget. David had explained the exile. As far as he had been able to see, Reese was poison. And Mary hadn’t met her—she had nothing to go on to the contrary but the word of two young men who were only just beginning to see hints of the world they blindly dwelt in.

David sighed again. Then he drew a piece of paper and a pen from his back pocket, bent over the coffee table, and jotted down an address. He handed it to her without a word.

“Thank you,” she said, glancing at the address. Somewhere in Lincoln—she didn’t know the city well enough to say exactly where.

“I can’t send anyone with you,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mary, but I can’t be responsible for exposing more of our own. They are already too aware of us.”

“I understand.” She stood. “I don’t know for certain what we’re going to do when we get there anyway. No sense in you sending someone else to share in our uncertainty.”

David stood as well, nodding at Richard, who joined them. “You have a man of prayer. At least you don’t go unarmed. But these two now …” here his eyes moved to Chris and Tyler, who both took on a defensive stance. “These two have no armament at all, unless I am sorely mistaken.”

She sighed. “You’re not.” Truth be told, she wasn’t really sure why she had brought them here. To identify Reese if they found her, she supposed, and convince her to trust them. And because Patrick had spoken to Tyler. They clearly had a part in the plan.

“Why don’t you leave them here?” David asked. “We’ll look out for them until you come back.” He left half his words unspoken.
If
you come back.

“Thanks, but no,” Chris said. “I came along to help.”

She breathed an inward sigh of relief that he said nothing more than that. The last thing she wanted was for David to know why they were really here—that they didn’t expect to find April, but Reese. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she told herself. It was just that he wouldn’t understand. And whatever was going on with Reese, Patrick had indicated it was cloaked somehow. “Nothing is what it looks like,” that was what Tyler had said was the message from the cloud. It wasn’t David’s fault if he couldn’t see the truth.

Whatever the truth was.

Still, leaving the boys here didn’t seem like a bad idea. She turned around to say so and saw the answer in Chris’s eyes as clearly as if he’d been Oneness and they’d been closely connected enough to read each other’s minds.

No.

Tyler, then. He was the younger and more vulnerable of the two anyway. But she opened her mouth to suggest he stay, and he met her eyes full-on and told her, silently, the same thing Chris had. He was coming.

Not, she realized, because of some macho bravado. Neither of the young men were here for an adrenaline rush or even to get answers for themselves—answers they deserved by now. They were here out of loyalty to a friend they barely knew.

She smiled and shook her head. “Thank you, David, but no. We’ll watch out for them. I believe we’ll be all right.”

“You have more faith than I do.”

She shook his hand, as did Richard after her. “We’ll be careful.”

Outside, on the sidewalk in front of the house, Mary let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She looked down at the address in her hand.

“I forgot to ask him how to get there,” she said.

“We’ll find it.” Richard’s voice had a grim note to it. She looked at him, questioning. Yes, he’d felt it too … a need to hide. To keep their intentions secret. Coming to this house—when they’d walked up the driveway, the presence of so many other Oneness had wrapped both Mary and Richard and welcomed them home. So why their caution?

“I’m glad you’re with me,” she said quietly. He would know what she meant.

It was good not to rely on one’s instincts alone.

The boys were already on their way back to the truck. Chris started to jog when he caught sight of someone leaning against the passenger door. Mary frowned. “Who …”

A step closer and she recognized him: the teenager from inside. Olive complexion and thick dark hair identified him as Mediterranean, maybe Italian or Greek. His back was to the truck and his arms wrapped across his chest.

He straightened up a little as they approached, and his eyes found Mary’s.

She caught her breath. The boy’s expression was tortured.

“Are you going after the hive?” he asked.

Mary looked over at Richard.

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s a warehouse where their power’s located. A horrible place,” the boy said. “Something happened there …”

“The exile?” Mary said quietly.

The boy’s eyes widened. “You know about that?”

“David told us,” Mary said. “A girl called Reese.”

His expression grew more pained. “She was my friend. My sister and me, we went out on missions with her. I was with her … on the night they said she betrayed us.”

Richard’s brow darkened. “You sound like you don’t agree.”

The boy held out his hands beseechingly. “What do I know? Things went bad … Patrick got killed. But I never thought Reese was the problem. She thought she was doing the right thing. Following the Spirit.”

A slight pang of guilt—the thought that David might not approve this conversation with a boy from his cell—twinged in Mary. But cell leaders weren’t autocrats, after all. And the boy wanted to talk.

“Can you help us?” Mary asked. “Tell us how to get to this address?”

The boy glanced at the paper. “Yeah, I can take you there.”

“
Take
us there?” Richard interjected. “You coming with us?”

The boy stepped away from the truck, unblocking access to the passenger’s seat. “Yeah. If you’re okay with that.” He stuck out a hand. “My name’s Tony.”

“Good to meet you, Tony,” Mary said, returning his greeting. His grip was strong, and knowledge of who he was flooded into her as their hands touched. Honest, brash, undyingly loyal. Oneness in every part of his being. Gifted—in warfare, she thought. Sword-handling, quickness. And there was something else.

She smiled, her heart quickening to an unexpected ache. “You’re a twin.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Angelica—my sister—she’s here with me.”

“I was a twin,” Mary said. “Long ago.”

She repeated, “It’s good to meet you.”

Richard smiled suddenly. “Well, well,” he said. Mary looked in the direction he was looking. A girl, Tony’s age and strikingly like him in appearance, had stepped out from the other side of the truck.

“I want to come too,” Angelica said. She shot Tony a look as he started to protest. “You left me behind last time. I hate being left behind.”