The Cimerian, dead? Doc felt some minor relief at hearing that, though the relief in no way eclipsed the sorrow that bloomed first.
“Most of the world's minds are mine and will be forever,” the Bartholomew drone grated. “You cannot undo what has been done this day. It's only a matter of time before we absorb the rest of you."
"How do you figure that?" David growled through clenched teeth.
The Bartholomew drone turned a pitying gaze on David. “Accept the dark night of the soul; the Executioner’s dark-tinged goal. Her brother’s turn, betrayal at its worst.” He paused. “The Executioner’s heart…shall burst.”
David gasped.
Doc glanced at him. Was Bart rhyming? He imagined the lines he’d just recited came from the prophecy. If so, David would know what they meant. At this precise moment, Doc neither knew nor cared. He couldn’t even internalize the rhyme enough to comprehend it’s meaning.
"What are you going to do?" Even as Doc asked it, he knew he shouldn't have. It made him sound weak and fearful, but he didn't care. The question came out without thought.
The drone’s smile widened in a way that sent chills down Doc's spine. "I'm going to activate the Dark Matter. After it’s been activated and your Executioner is no more, your rebellion will be at an end."
The fear in Doc’s middle intensified. He knew when Bart talked about Dark Matter, he didn’t mean Maggie’s abilities. He meant the sleeper cell Tenessa warned them about.
The yellow light remained in the drone’s eyes, but it changed. Faded. The drone’s face went utterly still.
“Doc?” Salla’s voice trembled with fear. “What’s happening?”
Doc studied the drone, wondering what Bart was up to. “I’m not sure.”
Chapter 41: Betrayal
The Cimerian was dead. Maggie let go of all the energy she’d been holding, and the most complete sense of exhaustion she’d ever felt in her life seeped instantly into her bones. What she’d done had sapped every ounce of energy she possessed.
Not good.
More Arachnimen converged on them. Maggie felt too exhausted to wipe them all out. She would have given it a shot, if she thought she stood any chance of success.
Tristan stood off to one side, his eyes glazed and obviously communicating with Doc. No matter what he said, Maggie didn't believe he remained aware of everything going on around him when he practiced telepathy.
As she watched, a stray drone—a Caucasian woman with reddish-blond hair, and a knife in both hands—walked up behind him. Tristan didn’t appear to notice the threat at his back. Maggie struggled weakly to her feet and staggered toward him, though she knew she wouldn’t have the strength to fight off the drone herself. Tristan was an ass, but he didn't deserve to die.
The hair made this drone somewhat distinctive, yet otherwise she looked utterly plain. Her time in the collective, as with so many others, had made her blasé and completely unremarkable.
Maggie froze when a yellow light appeared in the woman’s eyes. She recognized both the color and intelligence behind them. This was no longer merely a mindless drone. B now inhabited this body. The woman, now standing a foot behind Tristan, grinned at Maggie with a knowing smile.
Then she did something Maggie didn’t expect: she placed a hand gently on Tristan’s shoulder. Tristan shook himself out of his telepathy trance, and turned to look at the drone.
Maggie’s stomach sank. So, Karl had been right. The dark matter sleeper cell had been Tristan all along. Though Maggie had suspected Karl was right, she still felt the sting of betrayal, and the accompanying anger.
Tristan twisted on his toes to look at her. "Maggie —"
The Bartholomew drone pulled her arm back, six-inch blade clutched tightly in her fingers, and slammed it through the middle of Tristan's back. The man's eyes and mouth flew wide.
Maggie sucked in a breath, slapping both hands over her mouth. Tristan sank to his knees. The light went out of his eyes, and he crumpled to the ground.
Behind her, Maggie registered the movement of Jonah, Lila and Joan turning toward her when they heard her gasp.
Horror reverberated in Maggie’s chest. And guilt at thinking badly of him and not warning him because of those thoughts. She also felt confusion. If Tristan was the dark matter, why did B kill him?
The drone opened her mouth. “Accept the dark night of the soul; the Executioner’s dark-tinged goal.” Her—his?—eyes bored into Maggie, as though the drone’s very words could harm her. “Her brother’s turn; betrayal at it’s worst. The Executioner’s heart shall burst.”
Maggie held her breath.
Nothing happened. What kind of weirdo incantation was that? Then Maggie realized she’d heard it before. Or thought she had. It sounded suspiciously like a passage from the prophecy she and David had discussed. Was B quoting the prophecy to her? Why?
Dismissing the B-drone’s strange words, Maggie looked around for possible solutions. She saw none. What did she do now? A flood of Arachnimen and Trepids still headed their way. Perhaps B was only trying to distract them so they’d be captured, killed or, worst of all, assimilated. Only Maggie possessed the neurochemical abilities to fight Bartholomew, and she felt too weak to do so.
"Jonah? Are you okay?" Lila asked behind Maggie.
The Bartholomew drone merely stood, staring at her, but didn’t seem inclined to attack. Not yet, anyway. Maggie turned to look at Jonah. A short lull in the oncoming Arachnimen had allowed he and Lila a moment to catch their breath. Jonah’s eyes looked glassy and he frowned at the grass beneath his feet in puzzlement.
“Jonah!” Maggie snapped.
He didn’t respond to her any more than he had to Lila.
“Jonah.” Maggie kept one eye on the Bartholomew drone. “What’s is it?”
*******
Tenessa dragged Karl to his feet. He did his best to help her, but every muscle and nerve in his body screamed in pain. The Arachnimen were well-educated in how to inflict it, and they were frighteningly effective at their job.
Karl wanted to bark a million questions at Tenessa. Who’s side was she on? What the hell did she just do? Was that a neurochemical ability? It had to be, didn’t it?
He had no time for questions, though. The army of Arachnimen coming toward them had already cut the distance between the two groups in half.
When he’d stumbled to his feet, Tenessa doing her best to balance most of his weight on her small frame, he realized he didn’t know where Marcus had gone.
“Where’s…” He couldn’t get out any other words. Tenessa guided him toward the cave he’d seen earlier. More nook than cave, it stretched back only eight feet into the rock. Not much of a hiding place at all. Relief washed over Karl at seeing Marcus sitting against the back wall, still looking utterly spent.
“You…okay?” Marcus managed.
Karl nodded. Tenessa helped him to the back wall, and Karl fell to one knee beside Marcus. He didn’t want to sit all the way down. He doubted he’d be able to get back up. Karl would need a lot of rest before he’d be able to fight another goon, and he simply wouldn’t get it.
“We can’t stay here,” he panted grimly.
“The Separatists are in no condition to keep going,” Tenessa said sternly.
Karl glanced up at Tenessa to see her eyes darting shrewdly around. His heart sank with realization. She had no idea what to do, either. She’d brought them here because they simply couldn’t keep running.
"I don't understand," Marcus panted. "Why was there no disorientation?"
Karl ignored the question. What were they going to do? They’d be surrounded by Arachnimen in the next few minutes.
"Because they knew your plans." Tennessa’s said softly. Her voice held a finality that sent chills up Karl’s spine.
He turned slowly toward her. "What do you mean?"
Tenessa met his eyes. If he didn't know her better, if this weren't Tenessa, he’d have sworn her eyes glistened with tears.
"The Union used drones for the negative emotions because they knew the Separatists’ plans. Before, when you tried for the orb, you thought we sent a message to the collectives. You were right, except it wasn't all we did. We established contact. We've been in constant contact with the Union ever since."
Karl stared at her in shocked silence. He felt the same shock emanating from Marcus.
"How?" he sputtered. They should have felt a communication like that. Somehow, she’d hidden it from them. For days.
Tenessa shrugged. "Does it truly matter?" Her eyes bored into his. Somehow, he knew when she gazed at him that way, her words were absolute truth. "The Separatists were never going to succeed. They're all going to die."
*******
Thud.
Jonah hit the huge Arachniman leering down at Lila over the head with a rock. The sickening reverberation of rock against skull vibrated against Jonah’s arms. Lila had purposely caught this one’s eye, distracting him so Jonah could come up behind him.
“These guys aren’t the brightest, are they?” he muttered.
Lila quirked the smallest of smiles.
“Don’t they ever think to look behind them? Try to fight two people at once?”
Lila didn’t answer, but Jonah supposed it had been rhetorical. Lila’s eyes widened as they fixed on something over Jonah’s shoulder. He turned to follow her gaze.
The two of them had fought each collective goon together. Combined with these Arachnimen’s complete lack of improvisation, it hadn’t been hard to best them.
Yet, that would not be the case for long. More and more of the huge men strode over the hill. Soon it wouldn’t be he and Lila against one. It would be each of them against twenty. Jonah’s heart rate quickened. He couldn’t have described all the details of how things were going wrong for the team—he had no freaking clue—but he knew they were.
“Maggie!” he yelled. He’d called back to her several times, asking what she wanted them to do. She’d given him no answer.
Behind him, Maggie sucked in a sharp breath. Jonah whirled, fear clutching his heart. Maggie looked unhurt. She stood with both hands clapped over her mouth. Jonah followed her gaze to a strange-looking blond woman. It took Jonah another five seconds to register Tristan’s body, crumpled at the woman’s feet.
Beside him, Lila, who’d also whirled at the sound of Maggie’s shock, gasped as well.
Jonah peered more closely at the blond woman. He’d never seen her before. She stared at Maggie as though Maggie was something to eat. Then, she began to speak.
“Accept the dark night of the soul; the Executioner’s dark-tinged goal. Her brother’s turn, betrayal at its worst. The Executioner’s heart…shall burst.”
Flicker.
Jonah stood in the hallway of his memory, the walls towering above his three-year-old self.
Flicker.
He stood in the living room, the door and fogged window in front of him. He’d moved much faster through the memory this time.
Flicker.
He stood at the window, looking out.
No, he didn’t move through the memory. The memory seemed to move on its own.
The dark-haired woman wearing the hoodie put the baby seat down on the porch. Maggie’s baby seat.
Flicker.
Jonah stood on the front porch, watching the woman’s slim figure retreat down the path to the sidewalk. As before, she turned, head down, angled away from him, and grew smaller as she moved down the street.
Green balloons did not block his way, but they hung at random intervals throughout the yard, threatening to multiply at any moment.
Jonah experienced a moment of intense clarity. It was too late by this point in the memory. The dark-haired woman had already turned away by this point. He couldn’t expect to remember what he hadn’t seen.
Flicker.
Jonah stood inside again, staring through the foggy window. He pressed pudgy hands against the wet glass, followed by his nose. This was the only point at which the woman faced him.
He squinted his eyes, scrutinizing the face. At first, it looked blurry, distorted. Nothing more than a light blob with slits for eyes and mouth, framed by dark hair beneath the hoodie. Something Picasso might have painted.
Jonah willed it to become clear. He needed to know this woman’s identity, and how she tied to Maggie. It was important he know. He felt sure of it.
Even as he thought it, the image ironed out. The face became clear. The green balloons in the yard simply melted away.
Jonah registered surprise. How was that possible? It couldn’t be.
The face was one he recognized. One he stood beside on a battlefield miles and decades from this moment. Firm yet lovely features, dark, bobbed hair. A face that looked very much like Lila’s, only twenty years older.
Flicker.
Her brother’s turn; betrayal at its worst,
And the Executioner’s heart shall burst.
Something snapped in Jonah’s head. Like a barrier coming down. Jonah knew what he needed to do. It grew so clear in that moment, he couldn’t understand why he didn’t see it before.
The porch, the yard, the baby seat, the house, the dark-haired woman…they all faded into obscurity. They’d only been a decoy anyway. The memory held truth, but it had merely been a distraction to keep other things hidden.
Jonah unsheathed his knife.
*******
“Jonah!”
Jonah still didn’t answer Maggie. He frowned at the grass, looking utterly confused. Maggie wanted to walk over and shake him, but she didn’t dare make such a huge movement with B watching her so closely through the eyes of the blond drone
Finally, Jonah spoke. "Joan?"
Joan panted beside Maggie, a sheen of sweat covering her body, obviously still fended off the neurological attacks with defensive shields. When Jonah said her name, she glanced in his direction. "What?"
Jonah's expression remained the same, his gaze still on the ground. "It's you." He whispered.
Lila exchanged worried looks with Maggie, before turning back to face the onslaught of destruction coming her way. "Maggie," she said. "What should we do?"
"Yes, Executioner.” The question came from the blond, female drone. The voice sounded equal parts high-pitched feminine voice and low, raspy trucker vocals. “What should you do?"
Maggie detected movement out of the corner of her eye. Jonah, holding the knife Maggie gave him with both their essences is in it, moved to her side, his eyes narrowed and focused on the Bartholomew drone.
In some part of her mind Maggie couldn’t entirely acknowledge, she saw the image of Clay in the lighted room. He sat at the table, looking down at some kind of paper. His head came up abruptly and he stood and walked around the table, staring at something in the distance Maggie couldn’t see, looking apprehensive.
Dismissing the image, Maggie focused on the moment at hand. Jonah, walking threatening toward the blond drone, inhabited by B. As soon as Jonah came level with her, Maggie grabbed his arm. "Be careful, Jonah. I don't think you should get too close to him. He'll find some way to hurt you."
Jonah didn't look at her right away. When he did, his eyes looked strange, though she couldn’t have said why. His face looked smooth as stone, but something about his expression was so cold that it struck her as alien. It frightened her. What on earth was going on in Jonah’s head?
"Don’t worry, Maggie,” he said icily. “I know exactly what to do." Shaking her hand off his arm, he took a step toward the Bartholomew drone. Before Maggie could react, he raised the knife high above his head, point down. In a lightning-fast motion, he spun on his toe and slammed the knife into Maggie’s chest.
Maggie didn't feel pain when the knife went in. She went completely numb from head to toe and found she couldn't breathe. Acting on instinct, she pressed her palms to her abdomen, below her breasts and four inches below where the knife penetrated her chest, almost as if to hold the knife up. Realizing the illogic of the mo
tion, she pulled her hands away and stared down at her palms. Thick streams of blood slopped over them, as though someone ladled the blood on. A squiggly stream of dark blood inched its way across the line in her palm, like a river cutting it’s way through a canyon.
Blood on her hands.
The image appeared in her head once more. Clay standing beside the table in the lighted room. A look of horror came over his face and he fell to his knees, grabbing tufts of his own hair with both hands. Tears coursed down his cheeks and his mouth opened in a silent scream.
Clay, on his knees, mouth open in a silent scream.
Maggie looked down at the hilt of the knife sticking out of her chest. Jonah had just…just…
She felt. Someone caught her and lowered her gently to the ground, but she still felt the jolting movement of the metal shaft in her chest. Then Maggie fell for good, into oblivion.
Chapter 42: To Be Mourned
Karl stared at Tenessa in utter shock. He couldn’t figure out which part of what she’d said to address first, much less how to address it. The thud of Arachniman feet thundered ever closer.
Marcus attempted to get to his feet. His movements were slow, painful, and jerky. He managed his feet underneath him, and now squatted, chest heaving, with a hand against the rock wall. So, Marcus’s strength was already returning, but not fast enough to help them. He’d still lose pathetically against an Arachniman.
Karl felt sure his own ribs were broken. Between the two of them, Marcus was in better condition. Pathetic indeed.
“You got a plan?” Karl asked.
Marcus stared down at him worriedly. “No.” Taking a deep breath, Marcus pressed into the hand still resting on the wall and lunged upward. The instant his legs were straight, he fell against the wall, resting his full weight on it. At least he’d stayed on his feet.
Karl swallowed, trying to brainstorm a solution. Yet his brain felt fuzzy and he couldn’t think in a straight line.
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 49
