Hive

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “Who is this?”

  April’s heart was stopping of its own accord. She knew who it was. Who had it had to be. Dr. Vincent Smith—the real Dr. Vincent Smith.

  He confirmed her suspicion.

  “She left this morning to follow up an emergency call,” April said. “But maybe I can help you.”

  “Maybe you’ll have to. Do you know anything about the twins?”

  “You mean about what they’re doing? Yes . . . Reese told me she posted them at your home to keep an eye on things.”

  He sounded relieved that she knew. “Yes, that’s right. They disappeared today.”

  “They what?”

  “The school called two hours ago. Alex, the boy they were trying to watch, left the school sometime during first period. They must have followed—they excused themselves for a break and never came back.”

  “Does anyone know where they went?”

  “No one saw them leave, and they haven’t called. I’ve been trying to reach Reese ever since the school alerted me. I know they may just be tracking Alex, but I thought you should know something is up.”

  “Thank you,” April said. “You were right to call.”

  “Did you see the news? About the murders on the highway?”

  “Yes.”

  He was silent. She closed her eyes. “Yes, we think they’re connected to whatever’s going on with Alex.”

  “Do you have a good reason to think that?”

  “Just faith that nothing is coincidence. We’re dealing with demons, and this much demonic activity in one region is almost certainly connected.”

  “You don’t think what happened on the highway was just the result of someone deranged.”

  She almost smiled. “What do you think causes that kind of derangement?”

  “Point taken.”

  “You wouldn’t be asking if you didn’t think they were connected.”

  He hesitated. Then, “I found something in Alex’s room. I’m disturbed. Drawings.”

  Art. April knew all about that. “Drawings of murder?”

  “Butchery might be a better word.”

  “Doctor, if you hear from the twins or get any idea of where they are, will you call us please?”

  “Of course. I’d like your help in dealing with all this.”

  April hung up and stood at the counter in deep thought. It took her a few minutes to notice Nick standing patiently, staring at her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Do you need something?”

  “I want to draw. Will you help me? I need you to show me how.”

  For a fleeting moment, April wondered what charcoal and paper could unleash from this boy’s soul.

  She shuddered.

  “Yes, I can help you. Bring your art stuff here.”

  She hardly saw him go. She watched the phone a moment, willing it to ring, and then picked it up herself and called Diane. The call was short, just a quick request and a few cryptic remarks. And then she hung up and sat at the table with her head in her hands.

  They were too split up. Everyone somewhere the others weren’t. The twins who knew where. Reese and Richard and Mary off in the country somewhere, trying to track down Chris and Tyler, who were . . . much, much too far away. Too hidden. Calling all ships, April thought. Everyone please come home.

  Nick had been attempting a wolf but didn’t know how to shade it properly. April showed him a few things, distracted, and almost leaped up to answer the door when Diane arrived.

  Diane looked pointedly at Nick.

  “Nick, please go up . . .” April trailed off. “Never mind. You can stay.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  “He lives here. He’s going to pick up on things. He might as well be in this.”

  “All right.” Diane looked dubious, but she sat down across the table from Nick and didn’t insist that he go anywhere.

  “The twins followed that boy, Alex, somewhere. They all left the school hours ago. Dr. Smith is worried and he called wanting to talk to Reese. He says he found drawings in his room—Alex’s room. And they were disturbing enough that he thinks Alex is connected with the highway murders.”

  Diane groaned lightly. “No terrible surprise there.”

  “I want to do something. I hate it that everyone else is out except us.”

  Nick’s head was down. He had flipped a page in his sketchbook and started something new, working with his nose almost on the paper like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be here and was making a point of concentrating on his artwork so they would know he wasn’t really listening all that closely.

  “Where would we even go?” Diane asked. “We don’t know where anyone is. Better to stay here and wait for someone to call.”

  “We could go to the children’s home.”

  “And do what? Wait for the twins to come back? When they get there, they’ll be back . . . no real need for us to go too.”

  “Maybe they won’t come back.”

  “You’re afraid.”

  “You saw the news. You saw everything they would show and say and you heard how much they wouldn’t show or say. And that phone call this morning . . . people are dying. This isn’t a small attack. If the twins followed Alex, and Alex had something to do with those murders . . .”

  “I hear what you’re saying. I just don’t know what we can do.”

  April saw the anguish in Diane’s eyes and stopped talking. For a moment she had forgotten that this woman’s son was right in the centre of everything—was still missing, was somehow connected to at least one death, was completely unreachable and was not even One.

  “I’m sorry. I’m being insensitive.”

  “No, you’re right. We should try to do something.”

  “I don’t really know how to fight battles. I’ve lived here most of my life as Oneness. War is Reese’s thing. Reese and the twins.”

  “Then it’s good that they’re the ones out there.” Diane covered her face and said nothing.

  Outside, tires crunched gravel.

  Diane dropped her hands and looked at April, startled. They both jumped up at once. Reese was home. Or Chris was home. Or . . .

  Diane got to the door first and froze with her hand on the knob, looking out the window.

  “Who is it?” April asked. She rushed to Diane’s side, pushed aside the lace curtain covering the small window on the door, and stopped breathing.

  It was Dr. Vincent Smith.

  The first one.

  “Nick, get upstairs and lock yourself in your room. Now.”

  He looked up from his intent work, his jaw slack.

  “Now!”

  Gathering his stuff quickly, Nick pushed it all under his arm and ran from the room. April regretted chasing him off like that. But she could feel a sword forming in her hand. She stepped back from the door. Diane positioned herself just behind her.

  Before she stepped away from the curtain, she’d seen the gun in the man’s hand.

  Heart pounding, she waited for him to come in.

  There was no point in trying to stop him or slow him down.

  He was here for a showdown, and she knew it.

  Wanted it, almost.

  She’d been complaining that they couldn’t go out to meet the enemy. So it was fair that the enemy would come to her.

  The door knob turned, and he entered. Gun first. Ready to fire.

  He smiled. “Put that sword away.”

  The weapon had formed itself fully in April’s hand.

  “You’re not really trained to use it,” whatever was in him said. “Before you could get close enough to cast me out, he would pull the trigger and you would die.”

  April’s knuckles were turning white. She didn’t put the sword away, but equally she didn’t make a move to use it. He was right—she couldn’t possibly win this fight.

  It was so much simpler when demons came in the bodies of animals, or in their own ethereal, only half-physical forms.

  “Let
him go,” April said. “Face me yourself.”

  “I am facing you myself,” the creature answered. “You act as though I’m holding him prisoner. I’m not. His will and mine are one. He would shoot you even if I wasn’t in him.”

  The man smiled—a stretched-out, nasty smile that looked as though something behind his skin was moving it. His eyes moved methodically to Diane. “I didn’t expect to find you both here. Very well. Saves me a drive.”

  “What do you want with us?” Diane demanded. Her voice shook, but she spoke clearly. She had faced possessed men before, but not like this. The thugs who had worked with David had been blank, stupid. The teenagers who killed Douglas had been out of their minds. This man was malignant. Present. Very much evil, and very much joined to the spiritual power that inhabited him.

  The demon was speaking for the moment, but Diane and April both sensed that the man did not mind.

  This was the real danger, the real horror of a hive—not that some men would become controlled by demons, but that some men would give themselves over so completely that there was little difference between the two, and the demon would strengthen the man where he lacked and the man strengthen the demon where it lacked. It was a mockery, a perversion of the Oneness in its unity with the Spirit. A mockery designed to unravel and destroy the very universe the Oneness held together, plunging it into chaos and eternal darkness.

  Demons alone could never achieve their goal. They were too scattered, too divided, too dependent on physical forms, and too limited in their understanding.

  With men, they were capable of uniting. Forming a vision and truly working toward it. Controlling the earth and mastering themselves.

  “I want two things,” the demon said. He pointed at April. “Your life.”

  And then at Diane. “And your company.”

  Diane looked at April, alarmed. “I don’t know what you mean, but you’re not going to get either.”

  “Oh, I am. I am going to get both. You cannot actually stop me, you see.”

  He took a step forward, and then jerked as though he had walked into something invisible. Arrested, he glared at them both.

  “What is this?” he hissed.

  They looked at one another, wordless—unable to answer the question because they didn’t know the answer themselves. The man’s whole body tensed and jerked as he tried to force himself forward, but it seemed he was blocked by something. “It can’t be,” the demon said, its voice rising. “He isn’t here! We made sure he wasn’t here!”

  April nearly laughed.

  Richard.

  Prayer.

  “It’s prayer,” she said. “He built a wall.”

  The demon scowled at her, and she knew she was right.

  But the moment of relief at being protected passed as the man’s eyes changed. A flicker—impossible to describe. As though a slide had been changed. And the eyes were different, and the face, the scowl, no longer seemed to be operated from something behind the man’s skin.

  This was the man, not the demon, and he stepped forward unhindered. Even as he did, the sword in April’s hand grew less substantial—as though it might disintegrate from between her fingers. The demon was hiding itself.

  But the man, and the gun, were very real.

  “This is your chance,” April said, licking her lips. “You can be free. We can set you loose now—the demon isn’t in control.”

  “I heard what he told you,” the man said in a voice that was far too pleasant, but which had also changed—this was not the same speaker as before. “He told you the truth. I want him here. We have not been coerced into the hive.”

  “Who are we? How many are you? Where are you?”

  “Why don’t you come and see?” the man asked. “Oh, no, that won’t work. You are not to live beyond this afternoon. You, on the other hand,” he looked at Diane again, “are cordially invited to come with me. I would not recommend turning down the invitation.”

  “Why don’t I think I have an option?” Diane asked.

  “Oh, you have an option. But you should know the ramifications. Come with me, and you will learn what you want to know. Don’t come with me, and I will send a message to the hive and they will kill your son.”

  Her face went white, and he smiled.

  “Yes, we have him. The other boy too, and those twins you sent after us.”

  He cocked the gun and held it at April’s head, but with a half-playful expression that suggested he was only testing positions. “Where is the child?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  Without warning, he flipped the gun in his hand, strode forward, and clubbed April across the cheekbone with the butt. The blow knocked her sideways, and she sank halfway to the floor, hands shielding her face, but said nothing. He grabbed her arm and yanked her back up, shoving the barrel of the gun against her temple.

  “Let me ask that question again. Where is the boy?”

  A sound from behind him alerted him to Diane’s presence, and he called out, louder than necessary, “Try anything, madam, and your son will die. I assure you, right now his life is in the balance. We will not kill him unless you give us reason to.”

  He brandished the gun again. April winced. Her eyes were closed, her teeth clenched. Her body shook, but she stayed on her feet. And said nothing.

  “Heroics aren’t going to accomplish anything,” the man said. “If the boy is here, I’ll find him. He won’t escape me. Just tell me, save me a little time, and I’ll make this a little easier on you.”

  April’s eyes opened, and she looked past the man to Diane. She stood directly behind him, a butcher knife from the kitchen counter in her hand. But her expression was stricken, and she was frozen in place.

  Do something, April’s heart cried.

  But what?

  Kill him? Get blood on your hands? Provoke him to kill Chris?

  No, she couldn’t ask for that. For any of it.

  And thought she knew, with sinking certainty, that Diane would not trade Chris’s life for April’s anyway.

  “Was it you?” April asked. Her breath barely came enough to give her voice, but she managed to ask the question.

  To stall.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The highway murders. Did you kill those men?”

  The man’s eyes glimmered. “Oh, no, that was my brother. Bit of a loose cannon. But they backed him into a corner. He was transporting Chris and Tyler at the time.”

  “He didn’t use a gun,” April said, eyeing the cold steel up against her face.

  Stupid, to push like this. Lunacy.

  But maybe it would work.

  “Of course not,” the man growled. “He used his bare hands. Would you like me to demonstrate?”

  “You can’t. You need the demon’s strength for that, and he’s hiding.”

  The man snarled. He pulled the gun away from April’s face and shoved her toward the kitchen door. She lost her balance and sprawled on the floor, grateful for every second, for every possible moment that he could misstep.

  But how far would Richard’s shield extend?

  The man came for her, to grab her arm and shove her outside, but movement from beyond the window caught his eye, and he cursed. He took hold of her arm and yanked her to her feet, but this time he shoved her further into the house, into the common room behind the kitchen.

  Deeper into the shield.

  He kept the gun on her. “Get behind the couch,” he said, following her as she obeyed. He cast another glare at Diane—who had somehow hidden the knife, or put it down. “Not one word. Try nothing. Anything you do, your son will pay.”

  The kitchen door bashed open. April couldn’t see, from behind the couch, who was here. Her face felt like it had been split open, except that she couldn’t feel blood. The man had fit himself behind the couch as well, his long legs folded up, the gun still trained straight on her.

  Stall, she told herself. Keep stalling.

  Somehow, turn
time so it’s on your side.

  It took her a moment to recognize the voice in the kitchen. A woman’s voice.

  Shelley.

  Nick’s mother.

  “Where?” she was demanding in near-hysterics. “Where is he? His car is outside; he has to be here!”

  “He’s . . . he’s not available right now,” Diane said, her tone as motherly and as forceful as she could make it.

  “Don’t you give me that! She said you would protect my son! April said so! She lied to me! You people bring him here and then call that . . . that snake . . . that . . .”

  She let off a stream of expletives.

  “We’re not handing Nick over to him,” Diane insisted. “Yes, he’s here, but we didn’t invite him. We are protecting your son. April wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “Well, where is he? And where’s Nick?”

  “Nick is safe.”

  “Where is he?”

  April kept her eyes trained on the man, trying not to let Shelley’s distress distract her. If this was a demon in control, if it wasn’t being held back by Richard’s shield, Shelley wouldn’t be enough to break its concentration. It would just feed off of her.

  But this was a man. A man who could get nervous, distracted, knocked off balance because the timing was wrong, because things weren’t going as planned.

  Her heart gathered up the surroundings, the voices, the pitched tension, and offered it in prayer. One word.

  Please.

  Shelley’s hysteria grew louder; from behind the couch it sounded like her screams could be heard by the neighbours. And then she was threatening: “You tell me! You tell me or I’ll call the police! I’ll scream my head off and get everybody on the street in here! You just see if I don’t!” There were sounds like a scuffle, and Diane yelping and Shelley yelling, “You stay out of my way!”

  And then she was in the common room, hysterical, yelling into the house, “Where are you? You get out here and face me, you two-faced . . .”

  And he lost it. The man rose to his feet, pointing the gun at her, hand shaking.

  “Shut up, woman!” he said. “Keep your damn voice down before I shoot your throat out.”

  She went white at the sight of the gun.

  April said a prayer. A reaching out to Diane. Broadcasting a thought and desperately hoping the air could truly carry it. Now.