Attack

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “So how about you?” The direct question caught her off guard. “You are still dealing with a lot. I know that. You lost the Oneness—lost what’s keeping me together. Do you feel like you’ve come back?”

  “No,” she admitted, unable to be dishonest in the face of his honesty. “Not really.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I just need . . . time.”

  “Do you wish you were going after David instead of the others?”

  That question rattled her too. Yes, she did. David was the front line. David was the prize. He was the one who mattered most, and Reese had never liked being away from the front, away from the charge. She knew that Jacob was also important, that they had to go after the hive in any incarnation where they could find it, but she also knew she was being sent to him because it wasn’t personal, and she wouldn’t be safe if she went after David. Even though Mary had her own history with him, she had been judged safe, and worthy, and able to do this, and Reese had not.

  That stung.

  At the same time, it was a tremendous relief.

  Because she knew they were right.

  “It’s best that I go where I’m going,” Reese said. “Richard is right about this. I don’t like it. It’s hard. But he’s right.”

  Tyler tried a smile, but it came to more of a grimace. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  They drove on, and then he laughed.

  “So we’re on the attack, and we’re starting by going to a jail and trying to talk to someone. Just talk. And hope he listens and cares enough to turn around. What in the world kind of war do you fight like that?”

  Reese smiled grimly. “The only kind there really is.”

  She settled back into her seat. “But you’re wrong about one detail. We’re not just going to talk.”

  He looked startled. “What? What else would we do?”

  “We’re going to break him out.”

  “We what?” There was a squeak in his voice. She heard it in his spirit, too—a racing to try to keep up with her.

  “I know Richard wants us to stay safe, but Jacob is not going to come back to us while he’s sitting in prison,” Reese said. “He needs to come out and be with us. Alongside us. Where we can reach him. So we’ll most likely have to get him out. Besides, the prison doesn’t know what they’re dealing with. It wouldn’t be safe for him to stay there.”

  “Because he’s dangerous?”

  “Because right now, he’s spreading a hive. And prisons are already swarming with demonic activity. If he gets in there and gets that bunch organized, things may get very, very bad.”

  “Oh. Wait, we’re not going to go fight some kind of huge battle all by ourselves, are we? Why didn’t the twins come with us if things are so bad in prisons?”

  “We might be. We’ll win. Keep your eyes on the road.” He was starting to swerve, clearly hugely distracted by the sudden change in how he was envisioning this battle playing out. “Trust me, Tyler, we’ll be all right.”

  She tried to sound confident. A prison full of demons, she could handle.

  Jacob, she wasn’t sure.

  Chapter 2

  Richard arrived at the children’s home in Brass and greeted Dr. Smith, who was waiting for him by the front door and had it opened before Richard even got a chance to ring the bell. He’d come in a rental car, having loaned his to the group going after David.

  “Welcome,” Dr. Smith said. His eyes shifted from Richard to the twins. “Is this all of you?”

  “Everyone is deployed,” Richard said. “We already know our main target. They’ve gone after him.”

  Dr. Smith nodded and ran a hand over his bald head. “Thank you,” he said, abruptly. “Thanks to all of you for how much you’ve already sacrificed. I don’t fully understand what you’re doing, but . . . well, I have two children in this house who I think owe you their lives.”

  “That’s more true than you know,” Richard agreed. “May we see them?”

  “Of course. Come in. My wife will make you coffee.”

  “No need. I just want to see the children.”

  The doctor nodded and squared his shoulders. “Well, come with me. They’re in the office. Are all three of you coming?”

  “I thought that might be overwhelming. The twins can stay out here. Perhaps talk to Alex.”

  “That’s what I thought too.” The doctor looked relieved. “Forgive me if I seem overanxious. These kids . . . they’re in a bad way. Nightmares and frozen up, just not wanting to talk at all. I’ve never seen so much fear in any child’s eyes. And I’ve seen a lot—a whole lot.” He paused. “But they want you. They’ve asked for you. What did you do for them?”

  “I loved them,” Richard said. He smiled sadly. “Just held their hands and did my best to father them. Like you do. And it got through enough that they wanted to break free. But I know they’ve been badly traumatized by everything.” He paused. “You said Alex is here too?”

  “Under house arrest, yes. We promised the police we could keep him contained.”

  Richard looked concerned. “That might not be true. He’s still got . . . company.”

  “The company is behaving, so far. I figured you would want to talk to him, and you could do it more easily here than if he was at a facility. We just want to be of service.”

  Richard stopped just before Dr. Smith opened his office door. “Before you leave me with the children—I just want to say thank you, sir. You’ve been more help than you know.”

  Dr. Smith nodded and smiled. Then he opened the door.

  The children were waiting, sitting side by side in chairs with their hands clasped. A boy and a girl, brother and sister, just a year or so apart in age. The boy was older, maybe twelve; the girl eleven.

  When they saw Richard, both their faces flooded with relief, then flashed fear.

  “It’s all right,” Richard said in a low voice, and moved more than he had expected to be, he opened his arms and embraced both children like a father.

  They were supposed to be his undoing. In the attack, David had appointed them, possessed as they both had been, to hang onto Richard’s hands. He knew Richard wouldn’t hurt them—and their demons would afflict them as soon as he tried to do anything against David’s plans.

  It had worked. For a little while.

  But children were still children, and these were frightened, lost, needy children who were desperate to become part of a different story than the one they found themselves in. So Richard had held their hands as tightly as he could without hurting them and had willed them to know that they could be loved, and protected; he had reached out with everything in him, spirit to spirit, calling to them with Oneness and with Spirit and with fatherhood.

  They’d heard.

  It had worked.

  They had cried out for deliverance, and Mary had driven the demons away.

  But they were even more lost now. Tormented by memories and fears, with minds like empty rooms where other powers had occupied, desperately needing to be filled.

  He was here to learn from them. To ask them about what they had seen and heard so he could find out if there were others like Jacob and David: members of the Oneness who had turned against the body, who were working with demons to build the strength and numbers of the hive, who were trying to destroy themselves by destroying the Oneness.

  But he wouldn’t ask them questions yet.

  He held them close, pressing them both to his chest, and found himself weeping.

  They clung.

  * * *

  His name was Jordan; hers was Alicia. They were twelve and eleven. They had parents, to Richard’s surprise. The children had no idea where those parents were. They’d been raised by a grandfather who liked to dabble in the occult. They could not say exactly how or when their own doors had been opened to the demons. Only that it was fun, for a little while, and then terrifying and awful, and they had wanted nothing but to get away.

 
Richard listened to their story—mostly Jordan talked—and wished the last part was true. But he knew it was not. Those who got a taste for demonic power rarely wanted nothing but to get away: they were afraid, yes, but also addicted and drawn.

  His love had broken through to them. He hoped it could stay that way. That they would not be drawn back.

  The one way to ensure that was to become Oneness. But they would have to enter—to Join—of their own accord. In the same way they had opened themselves to the demonic, they would have to open themselves to the Spirit. He could do absolutely nothing to make that happen. It was nothing any human being, no matter how spiritual, could control. He could only love them. Draw them, by the power of love.

  So he told them about the Oneness. He told them there was a family, a body, connected as a single living, breathing organism across life and death, times and dimensions, millions of threads holding the entire universe together in the power of one unifying Spirit.

  To be One, unlike being possessed, was not to possess great power or independence. It was to be a servant, responsible to everyone. But it was also to be embraced in a hold deeper, higher, greater than fatherhood, or romance, or family.

  They were twelve and eleven. He didn’t know how much of what he said connected, how much of it even made sense to them.

  He marvelled, even as he spoke, at how these things had shaped him. He did not often think about that. The Oneness was his normal. It had been for decades. He could hardly conceive of life anymore without it. But as he spoke, he remembered himself before the connection, the Joining. He remembered how the Oneness had changed his life.

  It was no wonder the rebels could do so much damage. The Oneness was not a small thing. It was everything. They were trying to destroy everything.

  When he finished telling them all these things, he hugged them again and said, “You’re safe now, here.”

  Alicia nodded, her small head rubbing against his shoulder. Jordan didn’t respond.

  Then he sat back and looked at them both again. “I need your help,” he said. “The Oneness needs your help. Will you give it?”

  “What can we do?” Jordan asked, suspicious.

  “You can just tell me what you know,” Richard answered. “Anything you learned while you were part of the hive—about what David was trying to do.”

  “David hates you,” Jordan announced. Then immediately looked fearful of his own brashness.

  “I’m sure he does. But who else does he hate? Who else was he going after? Who else was he working with? That’s what I need to know.”

  The children exchanged a look, and Richard sighed. “We’re going to do our best to keep you safe,” he said. “You don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”

  “We’re not afraid,” Jordan said, but his eyes told a different story.

  Alicia didn’t bother to confirm or deny anything. She just sat silently and trembled.

  Richard waited, but neither child spoke.

  He wondered if they didn’t, after all, know anything. Or if they just weren’t willing to tell.

  “Did you know Jacob?” he asked.

  Jordan hesitated. “Clint did.”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “Clint went out to see him.”

  “Clint went to spread the hive on Jacob’s farm,” Alicia said. “Usually he came back and just laughed and laughed. He said they were stupid and just walked right into it.”

  “Was there anyone else like Jacob who Clint went to see?”

  They were silent. Stone faces.

  He chose his words carefully. “Did they threaten you if you tell?”

  Both children returned stares. They weren’t blank—but he couldn’t read them.

  Richard picked up the narrative again. If he could just tell the story, maybe they would chime in—correct him, confirm something. “Clint is possessed, and he went out to the farm to get others to open up to the demons too. And they did. Jacob helped him. And Clint had other places he would go to do the same thing. People listen to him because he’s powerful, and they want that power.”

  Still stone faced.

  “There are others like Jacob and David—men or women who are Oneness but are angry or hurt or just want to control, and they invite Clint in. And he would go to them like he went to the farm . . .”

  “No,” Alicia said.

  Jordan shot her a dirty look.

  But the expression in his eyes was becoming clearer—clear enough that Richard could read it.

  It wasn’t fear.

  It was guilt.

  “Not Clint,” Richard said quietly. “You would go to them.”

  “To her,” Alicia said.

  “To her. Who is she? Where is she?”

  They didn’t answer his questions. “David told us we were like the Oneness too, but better,” Alicia said. “He said we were helping to set people free from it. He said that’s what the demons were doing.”

  “You knew he was wrong, didn’t you,” Richard said.

  “The demons don’t help anyone with anything,” Jordan said. “All they do is wreck stuff.”

  But there was a note of triumph, of power, in the way he said that. Richard heard it and shuddered deep inside.

  He hoped, desperately hoped, this boy would come into the Oneness. Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before he let the demons back in.

  Human beings were not meant to exist on their own. They were meant for spiritual connection, to be part of a fabric. Once they had connected, either to the Spirit or to the demonic, they could not go back into isolated independence forever.

  “You’re right,” Richard said. “Demons can’t help anyone. And they can’t make people like the Oneness. All they can do is control and try to force everyone to be the same. That’s not Oneness.”

  They were retreating back into their shells.

  “So,” Richard said, clasping his hands, “tell me about her. Please.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Mitchell Jackson met Reese and Tyler at the prison. To their relief, he told them that he’d been able to keep Jacob separated from anyone else.

  “Was there some kind of trouble?” Tyler asked.

  “No,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “But I don’t want him in with anyone else. The man is more kinds of trouble than I can think about. He makes me want to listen to every word he says. Last thing I want to do is throw him in with a bunch of criminals.”

  “You’re wise,” Reese said.

  “How does a man come by that much influence?” Jackson asked. “His sneezes have more authority than my orders.”

  “It’s a gift,” Reese said. “One he’s misusing.”

  “Pardon me, but he’s one of you, isn’t he?”

  The question hung in the air for a minute. They hadn’t told him about themselves—who and what they were.

  “I know you’re not just . . . normal,” Jackson continued. “I’ve seen a few things in my life. Learned there are powers out there that aren’t just human. Including you. You’re not the first ones I’ve run into.”

  Reese nodded. “You’re right.”

  “And he is one of you?”

  “He is,” Reese said.

  “I’ve never seen one of you go bad.”

  “We hadn’t either. It’s not normal.”

  “So you’re here to what? Get him back? Discipline him? Hold an execution?”

  “Lieutenant,” Reese said with half a smile, “what exactly are you going to do with my answer to that question?”

  He lowered his voice. “Quite honestly, I’m going to let you do whatever you’re here to do. I’m out of my league. You take this out of my hands, I’ll be more than grateful.”

  “Isn’t that going to get you in trouble?”

  “Depends on what you do. I’ll find a way to keep the heat off myself as much as I can. I just want you to deal with this.”

  “He killed a man.”

  “Maybe he did. Nothing is proven. His wife swears it was an accident; I
think I believe her. She’s a bitter old hen, but I don’t think she’s a liar, and I don’t think she would kill anyone.” He paused. “You want her too?”

  “Not right now,” Reese said. “She isn’t one of us.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking . . . what exactly are you?”

  “We’re Oneness,” Reese said.

  She knew that didn’t answer his question at all.

  But she couldn’t really go into more right now.

  He nodded and led them in. Through two sets of security, and finally into a room with bare white walls, a table, and three chairs. Jacob sat on one side. He wore his own clothes—a button-up shirt and work pants—and his hair and beard were neatly trimmed. His eyes flashed fire as they sat down.

  “You can’t keep me here,” he said. “I am guilty of nothing. They will have to see that and let me go.”

  “You’re guilty of a great deal,” Reese said, “but we don’t want to keep you here. Actually, we want to get you out where we can talk to you properly.”

  He looked up, smirking. “You’re saying that in front of their cameras.”

  “We’re okay.”

  “You’re working with the police on this?” A tiny bit of his smug confidence wavered.

  “They are servants,” Reese said. “Like we are. Like you are.”

  He sat back and folded his arms. “And you are here to what? Chastise me for failing to serve properly? You hardly deserve the name Oneness. Any of you. You have a high calling, and you’ve failed to live up to it.”

  “You, on the other hand, are a faithful servant of God,” Reese countered. “Failing to bring any of your followers into the Oneness and opening them up to demons instead.”

  He flushed. “What you call the Oneness is a perversion of itself. I am building the purified assembly, the Oneness as it is meant to be.”

  “With demons?”

  “Have you considered that you might be wrong about power?” Jacob asked, clearly on his own footing again. “That what you call angels and demons may be falsely so-called?”

  “You brought Clint in to introduce your people to his kind of power. What kind of betrayal is that?”