Hive

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  Where he was now was anyone’s guess.

  The cell was still just trying to pick up the pieces.

  Chris parked on the street across from the house and jumped out into tufty, scratchy grass on the edge of the curb. No one around here made landscaping a priority. The cell house was by far the best kept on the block. Tyler eased his way out of the car a little more slowly. The presence of the Oneness heightened his sensitivity to the whole area, and the whole area, to him, felt bruised. Purple and swollen and maybe still bleeding on the inside.

  The front screen door swung open with a creak and a bang, and a girl about nineteen threw herself out. Long, thick dark hair streamed out behind her. She wore a T-shirt and cutoff shorts and did not look a thing like the ruthless swordswoman Tyler and Chris both knew her to be.

  “Good morning!” Angelica called as she trotted down the sidewalk toward them. “Come in! Coffee’s on.”

  She looked at Tyler and their eyes caught, and in that split second exchanged the pain of David’s betrayal. The Oneness did not fracture without everyone feeling it. The more members present, the more compounded the pain.

  “Thanks,” Chris said, ignoring—or not feeling—the undercurrents. By the time they reached Angelica and all headed for the door, her twin, Tony, had appeared, along with two or three other younger faces.

  Tony swung the door open and stepped aside, holding it for their guests. He looked considerably less awake than his twin sister, but just as glad to see them.

  The common room in the Lincoln house was large, easily big enough to serve as a small hall, and arranged for visiting with several different sets of couches, chairs, and coffee tables grouped together a convenient distance from each other. Cell members were sprawled out across the various configurations, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, reading, or talking quietly. It looked like a college dorm, little indication that these were warriors, servants of God, labourers alongside the angels. Tyler drank in the sense of community and let it fill him, even in its hurt and brokenness. For a moment it was almost overwhelming. Added to it was the sense of expansion he sometimes felt at odd moments—a sense of the reach, of the immensity of the Oneness, that extended far beyond this house or this room, crossing time and space and even the boundaries of mortality. He half-expected to see one of the Cloud, those members of the Oneness who had crossed over the River Styx but maintained their connection, keeping ghostly vigil and casting envious glances at the coffee. There was no one—that he could see.

  Tony led them to a little huddle of padded chairs. Chris didn’t sit. Tyler did, for a moment, and then shifted back to his feet. Last time they were here, meeting like this, it was David hosting them, sitting them down, giving them information. Telling them lies about Reese. No wonder this place felt so battered. David had influenced every corner of this house and every person who lived in it. His absence was tangible. His betrayal even more so.

  “How’s Reese?” Tony asked. He was sitting, ignoring the fact that no one else was. Angelica hovered behind his chair.

  “Recovering,” Chris said. “Happy in the village.”

  “And April?”

  Tyler smiled. “Back on her feet and adopting village kids.”

  Tony arced an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

  “That’s actually why we’re here,” Chris cut in. “The kid was in April’s cave paintings. And he’s got demons after him. Our fight isn’t over.”

  Tony and Angelica exchanged a glance. “We knew that.”

  Chris blew out a frustrated breath. “Then I hope to God you’re doing more about it than the village is.”

  “We’re watching,” Tony said slowly. “I don’t like it, but it’s all gone pretty undercover since the fight at the warehouse.”

  “What’s still happening there?” Chris pushed.

  “Nothing,” Angelica answered. “They’ve vacated. We don’t know where the hive is based now. If the core has regrouped, we don’t know where it is.”

  Chris slammed the edge of a chair he was standing beside. “Blast.”

  Tony shrugged apologetically. He was still seated, impressing Tyler with his ability to remain completely unintimidated by Chris. “We’re keeping our eyes open. When they resurface, we’ll find them.”

  “You don’t know where they are at all?” Chris pressed. “No signs of activity?”

  “Nothing. We know there’s a hive . . . somewhere. But it’s not showing itself.”

  “Well, maybe we have a place for you to start looking,” Chris said. “You know anything about children’s homes in the area?”

  Another exchanged glance. “No,” Angelica said.

  “The demon that came after this kid—Nick—it came in the head of a children’s home. Or at least that’s what he said he was. Tried to take the kid away, but April got to his mother and convinced her to let the cell take care of him for now.”

  Tony whistled. “And the demon knows it?”

  “April confronted it. Sort of,” Tyler said. “She’s pretty sure it knows about her, anyway.”

  “So much for Reese resting up in a quiet village.”

  “There’s not much action happening yet,” Chris said, defensive. “But I figure what does happen will start here. Can’t we find it and choke it off before it gets to the village?”

  “Maybe,” Angelica said slowly. “But if it’s a hive, it’s not always that easy.”

  “Why not?” Chris said. “You two are fighters. Just go in there and slay the dragon.”

  “A hive is people, Chris,” Tony said. “We can’t go in and slay people.”

  “Well, what do you do with them then?”

  “Take care of them,” Angelica said. “Help them. Try to set them free.”

  Chris made a quietly frustrated noise, but he didn’t argue. “So that’s it?” he finally said. “You can’t tell us anything because you don’t know where the hive is or what it’s doing.”

  “That’s about it, yes,” Tony said. “We’re sorry, Chris. We do have our eyes open.”

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “I guess I just feel like you guys are in a big fight . . . I’d be more proactive.”

  “We’re always in a fight,” Angelica said. “Every single day. A lot of it is waiting.”

  On the way out to the car a few minutes later, Tyler said quietly, “They’re wounded, too.”

  “What?”

  “I know you’re frustrated, and I get why, but they aren’t just in a fight—they’re hurt. They need time to recover. Like Reese.”

  “None of them are broken like Reese was,” Chris argued.

  “They lost David. That isn’t a small thing.”

  The sun was starting to burn hot, even though it was just past eight, and the air held the heaviness of gathering humidity. Chris trudged to the truck with a frown and pulled the door open. “You feel it too?” he asked.

  Tyler winced. “Yeah. I do.”

  “I forget sometimes.”

  Tyler smiled. “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it means nothing has really changed. I’ve still got your back; you’ve still got mine.”

  “Everything has changed,” Chris said. Then he grinned. “But yeah.”

  “So where are we going?” Tyler asked as he climbed into the passenger’s seat.

  “The warehouse.”

  “They said it’s empty.”

  “I want to see for myself.”

  Tyler grimaced. “If you insist.”

  Chris pulled out and drove the truck through an enormous pothole, clunking down over it as they rumbled back out to the main street. “Besides, it’ll be fun. Old times sake.”

  “We almost died in there.”

  “I’m being sarcastic.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The drive to the warehouse took twenty minutes. It was a classic empty building in an industrial part of town, surrounded by truck lots and more warehouses. The chain-link fence was locked, so they parked on the street outside and jumpe
d over to get into the parking lot outside one of the loading docks.

  They stood side by side a moment, looking over the building’s unimpressive facade. Hard to believe that last they’d been here, they had been in a pitched battle with forces of evil so real and so repulsive that they seemed like the stuff of the worst old German folk tales . . . the kind of evil only children believed in.

  The thought shook Tyler for a moment. He wondered what sort of people believed in him—if he had really become something so out of the ordinary pale of human existence that it took belief in fairies and dragons, or angels and demons, to consider him real and not just a product of delusion.

  But the battle that happened here was real—very, very real. They had almost not lived through it.

  “Chris,” Tyler said quietly, “why are we here?”

  “For Reese,” he said. And that was all he needed to say.

  Last time, too, they had been here for Reese.

  Chris started toward the door on the side of the loading dock. Tyler paused a moment to let himself feel the place. The air felt stained, almost inky. But the rank evil that had held court here was gone.

  The cell was right. The core had moved on.

  The door was unlocked, which Tyler didn’t find surprising. He stepped in after Chris. The place was dark, empty except for a couple of pallets loaded with boxes of something. It didn’t seem to matter what.

  The chill Tyler felt was all in his memory.

  Chris wandered off a bit, into the dark. He found a light switch and flipped it, not that it made much difference—a few bare lightbulbs, high up, technically gave light but mostly just showed up how dark and dingy the place was. Tyler hung back by the door.

  They left after Chris got tired of wandering through the dark.

  When they stepped back out into the sun and the increasingly humid air, Tyler was surprised at how much oppression he could feel lifting off. He hadn’t been aware of it when they were inside.

  They headed toward the truck, Chris muttering something. Louder, he said, “Well, that was a waste of time.”

  “They did tell us the core had moved.”

  Chris stopped and glared. Tyler held up a hand defensively. “They did.”

  “Sorry,” Chris said. “It’s not your fault.”

  Tyler nodded and look forward toward the truck.

  “Hey,” he said. “Who’s that?”

  Chris looked up quickly. Someone had ducked behind the truck. Without losing an instant, Chris was jogging toward him. He leaped the fence and broke into a run.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, stop a minute!”

  The figure by the truck had tensed as though to run, but he—Tyler could see clearly enough now to make out a teenage boy—opted to stop and wait instead. He was shaking by the time Chris reached him.

  Chris stopped short of threatening the teen, backing off into as unintimidating a stance as he could manage while still positioning himself to discourage the kid from bolting. The teen was a stranger—maybe sixteen or seventeen. His eyes ran furtively from side to side.

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing here?” Chris asked.

  The teen’s mouth opened like he was going to answer, but before a word came out, Tyler got within range. The kid’s reaction was startling. His eyes open wide, he immediately tried to run. This time Chris blocked him.

  “Not yet,” Chris said firmly. He had the boy between the truck and a fence, with Tyler just beyond the truck bed. “We want to know what you’re doing here. And who you are.”

  “I’m nobody,” the kid stammered. “Honest.”

  “Well, you’re wrong there,” Tyler said. “Nobody’s nobody.”

  Chris ignored the comment. “What are you doing here? You want something with my truck? With us?”

  “No, no,” the kid said, his eyes panicked. “I just . . . wanted to see.”

  “To see what?”

  The kid’s eyes flicked to the warehouse. “That place . . . stuff happens there. Freaky stuff. I wanted to see what would happen to you.”

  This time Tyler caught the way the kid’s eyes kept shifting to him. He had angled his back against the fence so he could see both Chris and Tyler, but despite the fact it was Chris who had him backed into a corner and was demanding answers from him, it was definitely Tyler who scared him more. Why? He was about to ask but decided it would be counterproductive. Better to let Chris handle this and hope he would ask the right questions.

  “What have you seen happen here?” Chris asked. “And when?”

  They were good questions. The kid cast another nervous look at Tyler and shifted his feet.

  “It was just . . . just yesterday,” the kid said. “Last night. My girlfriend; she’s all into this kind of stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Chris asked.

  Now the kid looked suspicious. His eyes narrowed. “If you don’t know, why are you here?”

  “It’s a warehouse,” Chris pointed out. “Maybe we came to check out some business.”

  “You hopped the fence,” the kid answered. “You don’t belong here any more than I do.”

  His momentary belligerence vanished when he looked at Tyler again, and he shrank back.

  Weird, Tyler thought.

  The teen was skinny and average height for his age, his hair dark and greasy, his skin riddled. He wore a black T-shirt with some band’s logo and a pair of jeans. He didn’t look any more spiritually sensitive than your typical narcissistic high schooler. But he was definitely reacting to something in Tyler.

  “Come on,” Chris said. “Tell us what kind of stuff goes on here. What’s your girlfriend into?”

  “Freaky stuff,” the kid said. He leaned against the fence and cast a wary glance at Tyler. “They were going to hold a séance or something. You know, try to talk to the dead.”

  “That’s dangerous,” Tyler heard himself say, surprised at his own words. After all, he’d spent a fair bit of time recently in the company of dead people. But the Cloud was different—he didn’t know much, but he did know that. They weren’t exactly ghosts, weren’t exactly dead. They were still part of the same Oneness. Séances, attempts to manipulate the natural order of things through the occult—that was dangerous.

  Figures some group would move into the warehouse and try to do it there. The core was gone, but the kind of spiritual activity they had generated in that building was sure to attract all kinds of crackpots. And people more dangerous than crackpots.

  “Your girlfriend part of some group?” Chris asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Like you,” Chris said. “I’m curious about what goes on here. That’s why we’re here. We . . . heard some things, about the warehouse, and came to check it out.”

  “It’s just some friends from school,” the kid said. “They mess around with, you know, spells and things. My girlfriend’s all into solstices and candles and whatever.”

  “Not you, though?”

  The kid shrugged. “It’s weird. Interesting, but weird.”

  “Have they been meeting here for a while?”

  “No,” the kid said, shaking his head with surprising vehemence. “Not until that creep came along. Now they all do whatever he says. And he says this place is all, I don’t know . . . like a spiritual centre or something.”

  The unmistakable note of jealousy and resentment in the teen’s voice told more of the story: whoever “the creep” was, he had way more influence on this kid’s girlfriend than he liked. Which probably had something to do with why he was stationed outside the warehouse spying on people who came in.

  But which didn’t explain his aversion to Tyler.

  “Who’s ‘that creep’?” Chris asked.

  The kid shrugged, but the resentment on his face furrowed deeper. “Some college guy. Thinks he’s god or something.”

  “He have a name?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  Chris contained his impatience with admirable s
elf-control. “You know it?”

  “No,” the kid said. “He just calls himself the Wizard.”

  Tyler hid a smirk. “The Wizard? What does he think he is, a supervillain?”

  “He thinks he’s a hero,” the kid said.

  “Or a god,” Chris reiterated.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “They meet here regularly?” Chris asked.

  “Last night was the first time. But I think they’ll come back. Look, I’m not into what they’re into, but something happened here last night. They came out all . . . freaky, like I said.”

  Chris frowned. “Can you explain ‘freaky’?”

  The kid’s eyes shifted to Tyler again, and his body language grew more antsy. “Like him,” he blurted.

  Tyler felt like he’d been slapped. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t ask me, man,” the kid said. “You’re not normal, that’s all I’m saying. Like them.”

  “Are they still . . . freaky?” Chris asked. “I mean, did it last overnight?”

  “I don’t know. My girlfriend seems okay. The Wizard is like that all the time.”

  Chris folded his big arms and stood a little taller. “You know where to find this Wizard guy?”

  “No,” the kid said. “I don’t know where he lives. He hangs out by the school sometimes. But mostly he just seems to get word out and people go to him. Like here.”

  “Do you know when they’ll be back here?”

  “No,” the kid said. He looked both ways and started to move toward Chris, but his path was still blocked.

  “Look,” he said, “I told you all I know. You can’t just keep me here.”

  Chris didn’t move. “We aren’t keeping you. We’re just talking. It’s important that I find this guy.”

  “You got a score to settle or something?”

  “Kind of.”

  The kid looked torn. It was clear he didn’t want to be in the middle of this, but setting someone as big and imposing—and determined—as Chris on his rival was an attractive idea.

  “I can call you,” he finally said. “Tell you when they’re meeting again.”

  “How do you know that?” Tyler asked.