Chapter 7 #2
“Shut up,” he said, chuckling as he shoved me in the shoulder.
I caught up with our tour guide, surprised at how deep this place went. We’d passed a few produce stalls and what appeared to be a beverage station, all freely dispensing goods to the locals.
“So, Wallace,” I said, falling in step. “Are you the leader of this little outfit?”
He laughed. “We don’t really do that around here.
Everyone pulls their own weight, no matter how heavy their share of the gift.
I’m just some guy with a weaker connection to the sight, so I help by bridging our world behind the wall with supplies and information from the outside.
” He nudged me in the ribs. “I’m also the greeter.
My mom always said I had a pretty smile. ”
“She was right,” I said, nodding solemnly. “And you’re also the guy who cashes all the checks.”
Wallace nodded. “Everything goes back to the community. Gotta do our best to keep things running. And the things our people see, sometimes it’s not just for money, you know?
We know when trouble’s brewing. Big trouble that might affect us, or even the mundanes at large.
It’s not just about profiting prophets.”
Bradley laughed. What a dork. But I laughed, too.
“Over here,” Wallace said, leading us to a tent, its purple fabric decorated with bright yellow stars and moons.
I couldn’t decide if the print reminded me more of something a sham psychic might use to convince potential clients of their power, or if it was just something cute you might find on a teenage girl’s bedsheet.
We stepped through the tent flap to find a young girl on a sofa, her knees drawn up to her chest, her nose buried in a handheld video game.
I guess it was both. The inside of the tent very much resembled a teenager’s bedroom, or at least the approximation of one.
A fluffy rug and a few throw pillows lay scattered across the floor, a particleboard bookshelf of novels leaned up against the couch.
“Gentlemen,” Wallace said, “this is Zuleika. She’s one of our deepest dreamers. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be outside if you need me.”
“Oh, if you insist,” Bradley said. “But that won’t be necessary. I’m sure Zuleika will—”
“It’s for your safety,” Wallace cut in. “Sometimes an oracle stumbles into someone or something in the other world. Sometimes that thing wants to go for a ride. And suddenly an oracle is stronger and angrier than a roided-out pro wrestler.”
Zuleika dropped her game and threw her head back. “That happened one time, Wallace! Quit embarrassing me.”
Wallace lifted his hands up and backed out of the tent.
Zuleika studied our faces, her brown eyes huge and doe-like but suspicious.
A golden ring adorned the side of her nose.
The rusty orange-brown of henna tattoos snaked past the sleeves of her purple hoodie.
Most followed more traditional, lace-like mehndi patterns, intricate floral designs.
But here and there, something whimsical.
A heart, a question mark, a lightning bolt.
Zuleika blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes, staring sullenly up from the couch. Her gaze settled on me.
“I could take you.”
I nodded in agreement. “I’m sure you could.”
“Hi, Zuleika,” Bradley began. “We need your help.”
“Rich guy causing you problems,” she said, rubbing her temples as if staving off an oncoming headache. “Heard it all before.”
Bradley blinked. “You have?”
“Well, bits and pieces,” she conceded sheepishly.
“Wallace and the others said—well, they feel like they’re being watched.
Followed. We change the code at the wall so much more often now.
No one’s been hurt yet, maybe because they know they need us—but it could still happen.
And this man—he’s done some bad stuff. Writing on the bones. ”
Bradley sat on the sofa’s arm, nodding. “Awful things.”
Zuleika huddled deeper into her hoodie and shuddered. The corpses, the runes inscribed in their bones. JA Williams and his sacrifices. There was no way this kid could have found those horrific photos Nicoletta showed us on her own. The gift, the sight, whatever the oracles called it—it was real.
I sat on the opposite end of her couch. To my relief, Zuleika didn’t shrink away. “We think he’s working up to something especially terrible. This JA Williams guy is bad news. There’s an old book involved, and something called the Hive.”
Zuleika pursed her lips with distaste. “Yeah, hideous monsters wanting to cross over into our reality and feed on magic users. Carpet the land in darkness, yadda yadda.”
“They’re real,” Bradley whispered, his voice trembling. “All those years of work—no. Focus, Bradley.” He clasped his hands together, lips tight as he considered his words. “We think Williams might be trying to bring them back.”
A particular strand of the Hive, Bradley had told me, which was what his research had told him. I rubbed the center of my forehead, mirroring Zuleika and her oncoming headache. She was only telling us the truth as she saw it through half-lidded eyes. She had no reason to lie.
For the first time, I was faced with actually considering the truth of the Hive’s existence. To Bradley’s credit, he didn’t smirk at me or show any intent to gloat. It was worse than that. He looked worried as hell.
“I’m gonna be honest with you guys,” Zuleika said, pulling up her sleeves. “I hate this. But if Wallace thought this was important enough to bring you to me—well, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
Something twisted in my stomach. The most powerful oracle in Moraira City, as far as Bradley and I knew, was this child. And here we were, potentially exposing her to even more horrific sights. But what could we do? We needed her help. We needed her guidance.
“Thank you,” was all I could say.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Zuleika settled back against the couch, folding her arms across her chest as her eyes slid fully shut.
We stared at her for some moments, unsure of what was supposed to happen until it did.
Beneath her eyelids, Zuleika’s eyes were moving at rapid speed, flickering with inhuman intensity, yet she wasn’t asleep.
She flinched at times, exactly as someone would in nightmares, twitched here and there, a soft whine in the back of her throat.
Yet she was completely lucid, fully awake—exploring and observing in an entirely different world.
“Not just any Hive,” she muttered, voice distant, as if drifting from another room, another place. “Something bigger. Something stronger. Something even the Hive themselves fear.”
I covered my face in my hands, rubbing and kneading. God, what could possibly be worse than the suddenly very real Hive?
“All the victims,” Zuleika said. “All that blood. Offerings. Ritual. Trying to bring them back to our world. It’s bait. River of gore. Meat. We’re just meat.”
I stared at Bradley almost as much as I stared at her. Was it right to let her continue? What else would she see?
“Rich man—Williams. Wants the oracles. Wants us to help find this thing—this Hive Father.”
“Hive Father,” Bradley echoed, shaking his head as though the words were foreign even to his ears, on his lips.
“Don’t know why they want us!” Zuleika cried out. “Why the oracles? For our eyes? Our bodies? Our flesh? He’s sending men. He’s sending monsters. They’re coming. No, please. They’re coming.”
Zuleika’s hands reached for mine, for Bradley’s, clenching tight, her grip like iron. Her eyes flickered open, no longer brown, both milky clear and white.
“They’re here.”