Exile (The Oneness Cycle) (17 page)

But the demons came after all. They came human: inhabiting the bodies of three teenage boys, high as kites and crazed. They slaughtered the children and the couple and Douglas, who tried to fight them. He was the only one who fought. The Oneness refused to battle those boys. Douglas died trying to protect Mary, and then Mary held Diane back. Held her, with her small frame and her arms that were too strong for her size. She dragged her out of the house and forced her into hiding, and for some reason the demons didn’t come looking for them.

Douglas took a few hours to die of his injuries. Diane sat with him and clutched his hand and cried and tried to talk to him, but his eyes were glassed over and he didn’t say a word. She didn’t know if he knew she was there. Her sharpest memory was the blood.

Mary stayed in the village after that, becoming the leader of a tiny cell. And Diane never, ever, ever forgave her. Her most bitter regret was crossing over. Her greatest fear was that Chris would follow her.

She had not actually thought to fear that the demons would come again. Mary’s cell was so small it was laughable. And Diane kept herself out of it.

Her head came up sharply at a pounding on the front door. Hammer-man turned to face the kitchen but did not move. The smaller man answered the door and she heard Tyler’s voice again, uncharacteristically pushy and argumentative. Diane would have laughed and admired their persistence if she hadn’t been so afraid for him.

And then she heard movement behind the door at the base of the attic stairs.

They hadn’t.

She couldn’t stop her eyes from darting to Hammer-man. He looked stoic and unmoved as voices in the kitchen rose. Chris would be coming through that attic door any minute. Tyler was doing his best to create a distraction, but the huge guard wasn’t budging.

She saw the shadow through the gauze curtains an instant before the window broke and flew in pieces into the room. Hammer-man whirled around just in time for a pair of feet to slam into his chest, knocking him backwards though not over. The intruder landed on the floor in a catlike crouch. It was a girl Diane had never seen before, though she knew immediately the girl was Oneness.

Hammer-man charged her, and she rolled out of the way and brought a heavy iron poker into the back of his knee. He roared in pain but still didn’t fall. She ducked another charge. In the kitchen, Tyler had forced his way through the door and climbed half up the smaller man’s back with his arm wrapped around the man’s neck. He was shouting. So was the girl. And then someone else was there—a boy, strikingly like the girl in appearance and apparently trained to fight. He took Hammer-man down with a rapid series of blows, but the huge guard was up on his feet again in seconds. He pulled a gun.

And someone was at her feet, undoing the restraints that kept her in her chair. She twisted her head to see who it was. Chris. He had her feet loose and practically manhandled her out of the chair, big hands tight on her shoulders, and pushed her toward the attic door. “Get out,” he said through gritted teeth.

The gun went off. Tyler and the smaller man were in the living room, still struggling; Hammer-man had the dark-haired boy by the collar; Diane’s eyes were blurred with tears as she struggled to see who had been shot. Chris shoved her—hard—at the attic door.

“Get
out!”
he roared.

And it was the past all over again. One domino after another.

Into the confusion a thought came to her with crystal clarity: if Chris succeeded in saving her life, would she hate him for it like she hated Mary?

Chapter 14

There was a little hollow under the thicket, and Richard and Mary and the hermit tucked themselves there, hiding under the bushes and watching as David’s men searched the house and spilled back into the yard. Aware that they were close enough to be heard in the still air, they said nothing. Shadows were lengthening with early evening, and they hoped the patterns created by the light would help them melt into their surroundings.

They tensed as one man stood ten feet away and scanned the cliff. His eyes widened, and he turned on his heel and jogged toward the house.

“Caught,” Richard whispered.

“Do we run?” Mary asked very quietly.

Too late. David strode up to the group, holstering a revolver as he did so. His greeting burst out, taking them all by surprise.

“Richard! Mary! Thank God you’re all right!”

Richard steeled his voice. “What are you doing here, David?”

David stopped just short of being close enough for a handshake, halfway up the hill and standing at a definite disadvantage. His approach couldn’t be less threatening. The other men waited just a little behind him.

“Looking for you, my friend,” David said. “We got wind of trouble and have been searching for you everywhere. The Spirit led us here.”

“Us?” Richard said, raising an eyebrow at the other men. “They aren’t Oneness.”

David flushed. “They’re friends.”

“You know what they are,” the hermit growled.

“David,” Richard said carefully, “do you know what these men are?” All four were standing in a line behind David, waiting, unassuming. They didn’t look threatening. If anything, they seemed … blank.

“Do you have Reese with you?” David asked. “Some of my cell followed you to the warehouse—we were worried about your safety. They told me what happened there. That you found Reese.”

“Why does that matter to you?” Mary asked.

David flushed and looked down, the picture of sorrow. “I had to exile her, Mary, you know that. That doesn’t mean I took joy in it. She’s obviously in trouble. If there’s anything we can do to bring her back …”

“It’s a little late for remorse in that direction, don’t you think?” Richard asked. “What did you do when you originally exiled her, pack her into the street with nothing but the clothes on her back?”

David brought his eyes up and met Richard’s gaze sharply. “We did all we could for her, but she didn’t want our help. She was resistant.”

Richard didn’t let him keep going. “You’re lying, David,” he said. “Reese was never cut off from the Oneness. You had no authority to do what you did. No one can cut another off.”

David looked genuinely confused. “What are you trying to say?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure. But something is very wrong. And you’ve lied. I’m not sure what to do with that.”

Before he could respond, the hermit spoke.

“I know you!”

David turned, obviously surprised. “What?”

The old man pointed a shaky figure, squinting in David’s face. “I
know
you. I remember you. You came here when you were just a young one. Just a few days after the bombing.”

“You’re mistaken,” David said. “I’ve never been on this mountain, and I don’t know you.”

“You’re lying again,” the hermit said. He cocked his head as though he was trying to take in David’s face from another angle, like that would prompt the memories out of sluggishness and back into play. “Yes, I remember. Those were terrible days. You lost too much in them.” He raised his eyebrows. “You wanted to be cut loose.”

“What?” Mary asked, turning to David. “What does he mean?”

The hermit carried on. “You wanted to be free of the Oneness. You came here to ask me to do it. But I couldn’t—no one can. And you left here angry.”

Richard’s eyes opened wide, and he looked first at the men standing silently behind David and then back at the cell leader.

And he knew.

“The hive …” Richard said slowly. “You’ve been responsible for years to attack the hive, and you kept things on the defensive. Then Reese started hearing from the Spirit because you weren’t doing your job. And you accused her of betraying her cell. You told her she’d been headstrong and independent and a fool, and that she’d caused the death of good people, and you told her she’d lost her place in the Oneness because of it. And you managed to project enough of
yourself
that you cloaked her—you’re where the deception comes from. Reese isn’t the exile. You are!”

“And why try so hard to protect the hive?” the hermit put in.

Once asked, the answer was clear—so solid, so apparent that it couldn’t be denied.

Mary felt it like a blow. “The hive, David—it wasn’t centred in that warehouse. It’s centred in you.”

With the words spoken and hanging in the air, the look of wounded confusion left David’s face. Without hurrying, he unholstered the revolver at his waist and pointed it at Mary. “I think it’s time you both stop talking,” he said.

Mary’s face went white, but her fear didn’t dim her anger. “You can’t bring your demonic forces in here!” she said. “This place is under a shield!”

David cocked the gun. “I don’t need to,” he said. “This isn’t demonic, my dear. This is human.”

“Why?” Mary asked.

“Reese was going to discover me,” David said. “With her insistence on going after the hive. The Spirit was leading her straight to me. I had to get rid of her somehow, and the exile was better than a killing. It gave me power—it gave the core power. Power enough to finally, finally come after
you.”

“Me?” Mary said.

“You brought me into the Oneness,” David said. “Twenty-three years ago. I don’t think you even remember—that’s how little you care.” His grip on the gun tightened. “I want nothing more than to be rid of the Oneness. Since the Spirit won’t set me free, I’ll cut myself loose in my own way. Starting with you—all of you.”

“You’ll do what demons fear to do?” Mary asked quietly.

He waited.

She glared at him. “I don’t know where April is, but I’m sure now you’re responsible for her disappearance. Whoever took her, they didn’t kill her. Afraid to shed blood. Now you’ll do what demons are afraid of? David, reconsider. You said yourself you can’t be free of the Spirit. I hate to think what blood on your hands—Oneness blood—will mean for you.”

“Blood,” David spat. “You think I’m afraid of a little blood? I didn’t know the meaning of the word until the Oneness forced me to it. Death cannot come quickly enough for me. And I cannot be any more damned than I am while I’m still a part of all of you!”

Before anyone saw it coming, Richard stepped forward and put his hand on the revolver, gently but firmly bearing it down. “What happened to your family twenty years ago was not the Oneness’s doing. You know that. It was the enemy who inspired that attack.”

“What do you know about it? You weren’t there!”

“Mary has told me about the bombing and the massacre,” Richard said. “You’re not the only one who lost everything—the only one who needs healing …”

“I know where to find healing,” David said. Richard’s grip had grown tight, both on the revolver and on David’s hand. The cell leader relaxed his arm for a moment and then unexpectedly brought it up, twisting free of Richard’s grip and clubbing him across the face with the gun. Blood gushed from Richard’s nose, and he staggered backwards with David still beating the gun around his head and shoulders, wild and uncontrolled. Mary grabbed the cell leader’s other arm and held it, trying unsuccessfully to drag him away from Richard.

“David,” she screamed as the men with him came charging up the hill to intervene. “Stop it! Stop it, you can’t do this!”

One of the men grabbed her and threw her off, and she fell to the ground. Richard lurched back as David straightened up and glared at them. “Don’t you tell me what I can’t do.”

Mary struggled back to her feet, holding her abdomen as though someone had kicked it. “David, how are you doing this? How can you deny the connection—the Spirit? Everyone else?”

“I can’t,” he growled, and his voice slowly slid back to normal. It was steely now, dreadfully controlled. “No matter how hard I try, no matter how badly I want to, I can’t leave the Oneness. So I will make the Oneness leave me.”

“You know it wasn’t our fault,” Mary said, still crouching in the dirt. The hermit laid a hand on her shoulder, but Mary’s eyes didn’t leave David. “We didn’t cause the massacre. That was the demons—the creatures you’ve sided with. You’ve become what you hate, David.”

“No,” he countered. “What I hate is
you.
All these years the demonic has been offering us freedom. A return to primal chaos, freedom from the Spirit holding—
binding—
this world together. Freedom from each other. I want that freedom, Mary. It’s my choice, and I’m choosing it.”

“And everyone else along with you?” the hermit said. “You can’t just make a choice like that for yourself. If you succeeded you’d be taking away everyone else’s right to choose.”

“I don’t care,” David said. He looked down at the gun still in his hand, smiled, and shot the old man.

Mary screamed out as the hermit dropped in the dust, blood soaking the hand he held against his abdomen. David holstered the revolver and nodded to his cohorts. “Tie those two up and get them in the car. We’re going to do this thing right.”

“What do you mean?” Mary found the voice to ask.

His eyes glimmered. “I’m not going to kill you out here, under a shield where the effort would be half-wasted. I’m going to kill you where it counts.”

Mary’s stomach sank, and she knew what he was going to say before he finished.

“We’re going back to the warehouse.”

Bound hand and foot so tightly that they could not move, the companions were laid side by side in the back of the station wagon and covered with a thick blanket. It was damp and musty and smelled like old gasoline and grease, and the air beneath the blanket turned quickly heavy and suffocating.

They were silent as the car started and pulled away from the hermitage.

Outside, it was growing darker.

“Reese,” Mary whispered.

* * *

Reese tried her valiant best to lift April and carry her out of the cave before giving up. Her efforts only served to make it clear how weak she actually was from the attack. Straightening up, an attack of nausea nearly knocked her off balance, weariness sweeping through her core and every limb. She sat for a moment, letting her legs regain their strength. All around her, the painting told its terrible story. And April slept.

“Listen,” Reese said, peering down at her unconscious companion, “you hang on. I’m going to get Mary and Richard, and they’ll get you out of here as soon as they can. You only have to hang in there for a little while longer. Okay? Just an hour, and we’ll have you out.”