Attack

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “He is a man of God.”

  “He ripped two men apart with his hands,” Tyler said quietly. “I was there. And he tried to burn me alive, along with my friends. He uses witchcraft. What part of that is of God?”

  Jacob’s face hardened. “You only see what your eyes tell you. You can’t see the reality, the Spirit behind the flesh.”

  Reese buried her face in her hands. Not to hide, but to control herself—her own anger. To try to get in touch with an answer. The man was insane. She didn’t know how to respond to him.

  And he was one of them—so much one of them. She could feel his presence, burning and powerful, like her own heartbeat.

  That made it all so much worse. He was a brother. Passionate, totally given to his convictions, very much like her.

  She wanted to embrace him and kill him at the same time.

  Behind her hands, she knew what to say. She didn’t move them as she spoke.

  “Where did we fail you?” she asked. “Where are you hurting?”

  He laughed at her. “What do you think I am, some little boy having a tantrum because somebody hurt his feelings?” His voice grew steadier, more authoritative. “Tyler, you were on the farm with us. You saw the community I was building. The good we were doing.”

  “I saw people afraid to be who they were,” Tyler said. “Good people—people with dreams. But you asked too much from them.”

  “I did not. Holding people to a high standard is only right. How else were they to become who they wanted to be? How else could they leave the world behind and grow to their full potential as servants of God? There’s nothing evil in our community, Tyler. You saw that.”

  Reese looked to the side and saw that Tyler was looking straight into Jacob’s eyes, uncowed.

  “I saw a man abusing his gifts,” Tyler said, “and turning his back on his real family. That’s evil. And I saw him welcome the demonic into a place where he had promised to protect. That’s evil.”

  “I told you,” Jacob said, “you are wrong about what you believe about the demonic. The Oneness is wrong. We’ve compromised too much—gone too far. We don’t know the difference between right and wrong anymore. We don’t know the difference between the power of God and the power of darkness. If we did, you would know that nothing I have done has been wrong.”

  Something in his gaze made Reese lower her hands.

  “You accuse me of turning my back on my family,” he said. “I have not done that. I am trying to purify my family. I care about the Oneness. I care more than anything in the world. That’s why I’ve taken the road I’ve taken. That’s why I sit here in prison and endure persecution. It has not been easy for a moment. But I have to walk this road.”

  And Reese felt shaken. Because he meant it. Because he believed every word he was saying. This wasn’t David, duplicitous and scheming to the core. This was a man convinced of the rightness of his own actions.

  And completely, utterly, destructively wrong.

  “All right then,” she said slowly. “You believe we are wrong—that we’ve bought into a perversion of the Oneness. We believe the same about you. I’ll accept that you have to walk the road you’re walking. So I’ll make you a deal. Walk it with us for a while. One week. We’ll get you out of here, and we’ll do our best to help your community out of the hot water it’s in. You come with us, and do all you can to show us how wrong we are. But you ask yourself, every day, if you might be wrong. And ask it honestly.”

  It was clear he was taken aback.

  “That’s not the deal I was expecting you to offer,” he admitted.

  She smiled. “Thank you for that honesty.”

  “I am not a liar.”

  “I believe you.”

  “But you believe I’m deceived.”

  “Deeply. Yes.”

  He thought about it a moment. And she appreciated that—appreciated that he wasn’t just jumping on her offer, convinced of his own ability to hold out and wanting to get as much out of her willingness to help as he could. It was clear he was truly considering her terms.

  “So all you’re asking,” he said, “is that I spent a week following you and question myself.”

  “You don’t even need to follow us. We’ll split—you lead and we follow; then we lead and you follow. You teach, and you be taught.”

  She wasn’t really sure where this idea was coming from. It was far from what she’d intended to suggest when they arrived. A bit ruefully, she pictured Lieutenant Jackson’s likely response if he knew what she was offering. He’d been afraid of Jacob’s influence. Was that influence just affecting her, and she didn’t even know it?

  No. This was right. It would work.

  “Very well,” Jacob said.

  She didn’t know if she was relieved or burdened that it was actually going to happen.

  She did know, against her own expectations, that she loved this man as a brother with all of her heart and wanted him, desperately personally wanted him, to come home.

  “Do you want us to get your wife out too?” she asked, not sure whether that would even be okay with Jackson.

  “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t want her under your influence.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She stood. “I suppose we’ll meet you outside.”

  “What, no show of power?”

  Was he laughing at her? Teasing?

  “No . . . we’re working with the police, remember? No blowing holes through the walls. We’ll use the door.”

  They left, and Tyler looked at her with eyes wider than she’d ever seen them.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “I want him back,” she said. “He’s family. He’s lost.”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not like you do.”

  She thought over the question. “I don’t know. Because we’re One. Because I know how it feels to be lost. To be . . . deceived. To believe with all your heart that something is true when it is not.”

  He nodded. “I admire you, Reese. For this. It’s crazy, but it’s right.”

  She smiled, grateful to the core for his words and his friendship. “It’s the war we’re here to fight. But thank you. That means a lot.”

  He laughed and shook his shaggy head. “You’re crazy, Reese.”

  “So they’ve always told me. I’m glad you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, I mind,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “But I don’t have much choice, do I? Be dragged along by the Oneness, and especially you, or else go back to life alone. No real choice at all.”

  Troubled thoughts clouded her eyes. “But Jacob made that choice. And David. And maybe more.”

  “I think you’re going to bring him back,” Tyler said. “I think if anyone can, you can.”

  She gave him a smile and wordlessly squeezed his arm.

  In the old days, before the exile, she had never been so insecure.

  But then, before the exile, no one’s faith in her had meant so much.

  Chapter 3

  While Richard talked to the children in the office, Dr. Smith ushered the twins upstairs to “talk” to Alex.

  He was under house arrest, which amounted to being grounded in his room, and he sat in the corner and glared out at them like something they’d trapped there. Dressed in his usual all black, with his hair oily and his eyes glowering, he remarkably resembled an animal. His room, normally a picture of his inner state, had been stripped. Big blank spaces on the walls, marked at the corners with bits of tape, showed where posters that had plastered them had been torn down and thrown out. His bookshelves were empty; likewise his closet and drawers. Dr. Smith, his wife, Valerie, and the house mother, Susan Brown, had passed the point of tolerance while Alex was trying to murder the Oneness and had cleansed the room of every dark-leaning thing they could find.

  As it turned out, that amounted to nearly every single item Alex owned.

  The twins sat cross-
legged on the floor across from him, silent, holding their swords across their laps very visibly and very much at the ready.

  It was the boy, not the demon, glaring at them, but it was present, and they didn’t know when it might decide it had been provoked enough and attack.

  “Not exactly helping you out, is it?” Tony asked after they had sat for twenty minutes without saying a word.

  Alex did not answer.

  “That inner buddy of yours. The one who’s supposed to give you power and all that. It’s not exactly helping you out of a tight spot.”

  He didn’t even move.

  “In fact, I’d say it’s pretty much leaving you high and dry. You know you’re old enough to go to jail.”

  Alex finally opened his mouth. “That won’t happen.”

  Angelica answered. “You’re pretty confident considering that all your friends got arrested too.”

  Alex smiled, a smile that sent shivers up both their spines. “They can’t be held.”

  “There’s a better way, you know,” Tony said. “To be human. To be empowered.”

  “To be like you? No thanks.” He smiled again. “That loser, David, was like you. Pretty obvious how well that worked out.”

  “‘That loser’ is the reason you have your power,” Tony countered.

  When Alex answered, his voice had changed.

  They weren’t talking to the boy anymore. The air took on a chill, a poisonous edge.

  “He gives us nothing. It is we who give to him. We empower him.”

  “He gives you organization,” Angelica said, holding her voice as steady as she could. “Purpose. A plan. Without him you fall apart, just like you always do.”

  Alex’s face sneered. “He thinks he owns us. He is a fool. It is our plan. We are using him.”

  “To get to us,” Tony said. “To get into the Oneness.”

  The sneer became a smug, mocking grin. “The greatest prize. It is not so hard to make you fall.”

  “Sure it isn’t,” Tony said. “That’s why you haven’t won after thousands of years on this planet. That’s why we’re still here, still fighting you.”

  “Still losing.”

  “Still holding everything together. The sun rose today. It will go down tonight. I’d say we’re winning.”

  “But we are turning you. One by one by one.”

  “Correction,” Tony said. “You’re failing to turn us.”

  “Jacob. David. Reese . . .”

  “Reese isn’t yours. Or Diane. They’re still ours.”

  The grin did not move. “For the moment.”

  Alex’s face went suddenly ashen and twisted, as though he was going to throw up, and then he was back.

  Had he even heard any of that?

  It was one of the worst things about demons—the way they took over, forced you into yourself and away from yourself. There was no loss of self in the Oneness. Only self-discovery, self-realization, as part of a greater whole. A whole that a hive, with all of its control and seduction, could never hope to replicate.

  Alex eyed the swords still resting in the twins’ laps and said, “Look, I’m not going to talk to you. So why don’t you just leave me alone.”

  “We’re concerned about you,” Angelica said.

  “Isn’t that sweet.”

  “And you might need containing,” Tony added.

  Alex grinned. “That might be true.”

  His was a horrible smile. No joy. No humanity, really.

  “How long have you been like this?” Tony asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  Back to silence.

  They sat and stared each other down for another hour.

  At some point, the twins blinked, and when they opened their eyes, Alex was gone.

  * * *

  In the office where they were still talking to Richard, the children fell silent and then began to shake, rolling their eyes and trembling with fear, then jumped up and tried to run. He grabbed them both, looking around as though he expected something to dive straight through the ceiling and attack them. Maybe he did.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What are you sensing?”

  And somehow, though they were in a quiet office in a quiet house, he was shouting over a roar—a swell of noise in the air like a train coming through or an avalanche falling. The pressure in the air rose like blood, and Richard tucked both children under his wings and brandished the sword he suddenly held in his hands.

  Nothing became visible. Nothing materialized. But a sound like voices, then laughter, then the boom of a cannon filled the room, and the air went darker than midnight. Richard’s sword shone in the darkness.

  He could hear himself shouting for the twins.

  The presence disappeared.

  The room went back to normal.

  After a few minutes, his heart still pounding, he released the children from his side.

  They were white with fear, but not shocked.

  “What was that?” he asked them.

  But they trembled and wouldn’t answer him.

  He remembered the voices, words he couldn’t make out. “Did they talk to you? What did they say?”

  They just shook, mutely, staring at him.

  And he was calming, moment by moment, realizing he couldn’t push. Realizing they couldn’t talk, not in this kind of fear. Realizing the consequences might be real if they did.

  “Alicia, Jordan, you don’t have to tell me what you heard unless you want to. But think about the Oneness. Really, really think about it. If you come into us, we can keep you safe. We can’t always save your lives, but we can help you live forever as part of us. If you don’t come in, if you don’t Join, I can only do so much for you. I’ll do everything I can. I’ll keep you as safe as I can. But there are limits.”

  He was pleading, not just stating facts. Most people would not ever be bothered by demons like this. But these children had seen too much. They had been too much.

  For them, it had to be all or nothing.

  He heard shouts outside the room. A teenage girl crying, doors slamming.

  Dr. Smith threw open the door, his expression grim. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God you’re still here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Alex is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  Tony and Angelica appeared in the hallway behind him. “We were in the room with him, watching him. Swords drawn. He disappeared—we don’t know how. He’s just gone.”

  Richard nodded and looked at the children with one more pleading, almost desperate gaze. “We need to get these two somewhere safe,” he said.

  “It’s safe here . . . at least it was. I don’t know . . .”

  He interrupted the doctor gently. “It’s as safe here as anything can be on earth, but we aren’t just dealing with earth here. We need to get them somewhere with a shield.” He hesitated, then lowered his voice. “And frankly, Doctor, I’d advise that you move your whole operation where we tell you to, until this fight is over. You’re far too much on their radar.”

  “Do you have somewhere to suggest?” The doctor looked shaken, but he kept his voice calm and stood his ground.

  “Yes. A place called Tempter’s Mountain. An old friend built quite an impressive shield there, and it’s not far. I’ll take you there myself, and the twins will stay and act as extra guardians.”

  “I don’t know if we can just move all the kids,” the doctor said. “They’re in summer school, and we’re accountable to . . .”

  “Excuse me, sir, but if you don’t move them, Alex may come back and kill them all. You found the drawings in his room. You know what he was into here. He’s made you all vulnerable. I’m sure you can find something to tell your supporters and the school board. Field trip. Retreat for leadership training. Something.”

  Dr. Smith made a noise like he was swallowing back something he was going to say. “Yes.”

  “How soon can you all be ready to go?”

  “We�
��ll have to get one girl out of class. Pack up. Three hours.”

  “Make it two. Or one.”

  He nodded again. “One.”

  “Good.” Richard inclined his head toward the children in the centre of the office, staring wide-eyed at him and at Dr. Smith. “Tony, Angelica, guard these two. Swords out. Something just talked to them—whatever got Alex out, I think. And I don’t know what it wanted. Doctor, if you don’t mind, may I have access to your roof?”

  The good man hardly even reacted with surprise.

  Richard was going out where he could survey the neighbourhood, watch the sky, and pray—create as much of a shield over this house as he possibly could in the sixty minutes until they all vacated for Tempter’s Mountain.

  In his heart, he blessed the hermit and wished he were still alive.

  He would get them all settled in, protected beneath the old man’s formidable walls in the air, and leave the twins inside while he went off to seek her.

  The one the children had been trying to seduce into the hive.

  A woman around whom thousands more might turn.

  Chapter 4

  Of all the battles to be fought in this war, of all the journeys to be taken on the offensive against the dark, it was Mary’s and Diane’s that Richard had deemed likely to be the hardest.

  And the most necessary.

  So it was fitting they started it here.

  They stood side by side in a graveyard, a little plot of land on a slope overlooking the bay. It was ten miles from the village, a mostly forgotten little place that was kept mowed and tended by relatives of others who were buried here.

  Douglas had bought the plot here himself, declaring he’d lived most of his life away from people and didn’t see any reason to change that in death.

  Except, Diane had often reflected, laughing and crying all at once, it hadn’t been true. Douglas was a little taciturn, and very much independent and free and do-it-yourself, a man’s man in a world that didn’t remember what men were. He was his son’s father in every way. But he had never abandoned his race. Never become a solitary, a grouch, someone who hated people and let them know it, who ran strangers off his property with a shotgun or threatened to call the police on loud neighbours. He was loyal, caring, and always looking out for others.