Chapter 8
brADLEY
“What do you mean?” I asked immediately, but I knew. I knew because I could hear it behind my eyes, like a hum that echoed in my brain.
Zuleika screamed, falling face-first off the couch, and Griffin leapt to catch her before her head hit the floor.
But as soon as he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her back, she leapt at him.
The short nails that had been biting into her own skin as she went on her vision quest now reached for him, clawing and scraping over his cheeks.
He fell back, letting her drop to the ground, and I leapt up, my eyes wide when she turned to me, her very human eyes replaced red, compound eyes that seemed streaked with color.
She hissed as she leapt at me, as though she now had the bounding legs of an insect, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if wings had sprouted from her back.
She landed on my chest so hard that it pushed all the air from my lungs, I struggled, panicking when I couldn’t draw in a full breath, each gasp more desperate than the last as my vision began narrowing.
I tried to hold her hands, keep her from clawing at my skin or strangling me, but she leaned forward, her teeth snapping.
Then Griffin was there, grabbing her around the waist, holding her off the ground as she struggled, unable to find purchase.
I rolled to my side, gasping in deep breaths, the air freezing as it dragged over my throat.
“Wallace!” Griffin yelled. “We need something to restrain her!”
I slumped in relief when Wallace shoved open the tent door, but it was short-lived because as soon as I saw his eyes, deep red, dotted with a thousand smaller pieces, a compound eye designed for insects or the Hive—no.
That had only been a theory. A theory that even fellow believers in the Hive thought I was stretching for believing.
Wallace was almost on top of me when I rolled, knocking his legs out from under him. I felt the impact, hissing in pain, but then I was up and free. Pushing up, my hands trembled as the carpet on the tent floor dragged over my palms. I jumped away and turned back to him, eyes wide.
“Wallace! Can you hear me?” I asked. “Please! You have to fight through!”
He opened his mouth, but instead of speaking, he raised his chin, his throat undulated, and I felt it again, the buzzing hum behind my eyes that made me scream and hold my head, like the noise was melting my brain, making it come out my eyes.
Griffin swore colorfully. “We need to get them subdued!”
And, yes, that made sense. I looked up, and then down, catching sight of the rope that Zuleika had used to tie the poles of her home to sandbags.
Stumbling over, I desperately pulled at the rope, yanking at it until I managed to get it loose.
I tossed one of the ropes to Griffin just as Wallace pounced on me, sending us both tumbling through the wall of the tent, falling onto the dusty ground on the other side.
Wallace lumbered toward me, but I wasn’t about to play the screaming ingenue as though we were in a silent film. So I stood, raising my fists. Wallace lifted his chin again, and I was ready for the sound.
As soon as he moved, I darted in and hit him hard in the solar plexus. Or at least I tried to. The impact left my fist aching, and I yelped in pain, but it appeared to work because Wallace stopped his call, leaning forward and groaning in pain.
I grabbed an extension cord that went into the next tent, yanking on it until it pulled free with a crash, and then moved toward him.
The extent of my knowledge of tying people up was limited to some illicit viewing of Shibari photos as a child from a book in one of the more disused portions of the library.
Still, needs must, and I’d have to make do.
I grabbed hold of Wallace’s arm and wrapped the cord around it before pulling the other one back and managing a knot that was as tight as I could make it.
By the time I looked around, trying to find something to tie him to, he was shaking off the blow and trying to slide his arms out of the bonds.
He spun, the long line of the extension cord trailing behind him, and lunged toward me, only to be pulled up short, falling backward.
Griffin stood on the extension cord, and, once Wallace was down, he quickly trussed him up in a manner not unsimilar to the photos in the library.
“Just so we’re on the same page, the Hive is real. They’re coming, and they’ve infected our welcome wagon?” Griffin said. “Did I miss anything?”
I felt the humming ache in my brain again, and I knew before the first oracle rounded the corner. “They’re coming.”
“I already said that.” Griffin frowned.
“No, they’re coming,” I pointed toward the camp.
A half dozen people came around the corner, their motions jerky and twisted, as though a creature not used to human limbs was using them as puppets. Their eyes were so red that they looked like bloody holes in their heads.
Griffin grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the entrance to the camp, but it was too late.
The oracles were coming out, each of them moving in that strange, twitching way.
He swerved us into one of the tents, and we leapt over bedrolls and a pile of paperback novels, coming out the back to see four oracles already waiting for us.
But he was fast, jerked us left. I let him lead, my mind running too fast. The Hive were a separate species from ours. That was historical record.
They were a separate species, and we had some evidence of what they looked like.
Some remnants of carapaces and armor, some weapons that ancient magic users had tried to beat them back with, and been killed for their efforts.
There was an ancient sword, its blade pockmarked as though the Hive blood that had soaked it was made of acid.
The Hive were creatures from nightmares, but they weren’t… they weren’t just people.
Only, for the first time in my career, I let myself wonder. What had I always taken for historical fact that might only be supposition? That might even be guesses?
Griffin pulled up short, and I ran solidly into his back.
Exhaling at the impact, I looked around him.
The brick wall was still there, a football field away, but there were people standing in front of it who definitely weren’t oracles.
Not unless tactical gear and guns practically laden down with magic spell work had become standard Oracle wear, along with flowy dresses and Birkenstocks.
They also had odd magic helmets on, ones that covered their faces. And the color… there was something odd and familiar about it. Maybe it was something I’d seen on TV?
“Who are they?” I asked, which was a question that I didn’t expect him to answer.
“Trouble,” Griffin answered. “They’re in between us and the exit.”
He jerked my hand suddenly, pulling me out of the way of a swarm of oracles, who then fell in a pile before climbing over each other to try and get to us.
The buzzing in my head crescendoed, and I could barely see anything, the noise seemed to cover my vision, clouding everything except the tight fit of Griffin’s hand in mine, the way his protection felt.
And, sure, yes, obviously his protection and skills were why I’d hired him, but I couldn’t help wondering if that’s still all I was to him. A paycheck.
Griffin pulled me along, and we ducked through the doorway of a massive tent. As we ran closer, the blur sharpened to reveal rows of cots, framed by bookshelves and dressers. He pulled some of them down, blocking the way through. A line of oracles slammed into it, the humming intensifying.
“Just stop,” I screamed. “Stop.”
My words echoed my desperation to be able to think.
“I’m sorry, is running for our lives getting in the way of your thinking time?” Griffin demanded, and I could barely hear him because of the buzz.
With a scream, I pulled my hands over my ears, but that was worse. I heard crashes and chaos as the oracles around us made their way over the barriers. Griffin held them off, and then I just said, “Stop.”
As though my words were actual magic, the chaos faltered. I opened my eyes and pulled my hands down from my ears. The oracles in the room with us had paused, their eyes going from red to pink to normal human colors, and then they were the ones screaming.
Griffin let the one he’d been grappling with drop and looked at me. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t do anything. I just… You didn’t hear that buzzing in your head?” I pressed my hand to my temples, which still ached from the echo.
“What?” Griffin shook his head. “No.”
“We should still get out of here. We need to let MEA know that something is going on here.” I pulled out my cell phone, but it had gotten cracked when I’d grappled with Wallace.
Griffin started to pull out his phone when the tent began collapsing around us, the poles on one side pulled loose.
He yelled for me, and I followed his voice outside into chaos.
Everything was fast and bloody, and at first I couldn’t tell who was who, except then it became glaringly obvious what was going on.
The men with guns were surrounding a group of oracles, their expressions blocked by their helmets. Runes ran from the back to the front over the strange-colored headgear. I didn’t even see glass for them to see out of, it looked like it was made entirely of metal.
Griffin pulled us away. The men didn’t seem to notice us in the chaos, but one of the oracles turned, her red eyes blinking rapidly as she raised her head, and I winced, ready for the vibration, ready for the painful chaos that was about to crush my head, but Griffin stepped in front, his knuckles gleaming silver and he struck the nearest helmeted man.
The oracle broke off, her head tilting, and all of their heads tilted, as though the strange puppeteer controlling them was the same puppeteer, and all their strings were tied together. The oracles that had been in the tent with us struggled out and began screaming when they saw their friends.
“No!” one of the men shouted, and then, as though he wasn’t wearing flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt, he leapt at one of the masked men, using only a piece of a chair as a weapon.
The man with a gun stumbled back, clearly as surprised as I was, and then he raised his gun, and oh no. Flip flops and board shorts were no defense against ensorcelled bullets.
“No!” I yelled, and I wasn’t even sure the word had come from me, but the buzzing was back, and I could feel it like a tide, like ants swarming over my brain. I ran toward the man with a gun, aware I was going to be too late, but what kind of person would I be if I didn’t do anything?
But before I could even reach the man, the red-eyed oracles leapt on him, their bodies covering his, weighing him down. A gunshot went off, and the oracles stepped back, but they were fine and the man was still.
I skidded down, landing on my knees. The oracles watched me with interest, their red eyes flickering between me and the man.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, gesturing to the other helmeted men. “Stop them!”
The oracles grinned at the same time, and I didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t help shudder as they converged on one of the other men, and he realized too late that even ensorcelled bullets couldn’t save him from being torn apart.
The helmet. The helmets had to be related to whatever was happening.
My fingers shook so hard that I could barely get the latch off, one of my nails tearing as I struggled.
When I finally got it free, I looked down, and the man was…
well, a person. Without his helmet, he looked real, he looked normal, and he was dead, and I’d watched it happen, I’d been about to take part.
The runes on the helmet were written in an ancient pre-Edwardian language, and it took me a second to recognize it when it wasn’t on the pages of an ancient manuscript or an artifact in a museum. This was… this was the same language ancient Hive texts were written in.
The helmet vibrated under my hands, and I looked up just in time to see all the infected oracles freeze.
The men with guns had all raised their hands to their helmets as though they were better offense than guns.
The infected oracles all turned, blinking red eyes as they looked at Griffin and the band of oracles fighting back.
“No,” I breathed. In my hands, the helmet vibrated, and that had to be how they were being controlled, the runes would have to be the mechanism, but how to break it? How to free them like the ones that had broken free in the tent?
I stared at the helmet in my hands, hesitating just a second, barely long enough to run through all the impossibilities. Then I slammed it on my head.
All at once, the buzzing was back, only this time it wasn’t ants crawling over my brain, it was a thousand voices yelling at me, a million eyes sending every bit of information into my optical nerves. I could see everything, hear everyone. And over them all, a single thought.
Kill. Consume. Take. Kill. Consume. Take. Kill. Consume. Take. Kill. Consume. Take. KillConsumeTakeKillConsumeTake.
Stop. My own thoughts were a whisper in the chaos, a breath of air in a tornado, and I couldn’t make anyone hear it over the noise. Only… it wasn’t just noise.
I looked over, and the other helmeted men were calm, the voices in the storm telling who to kill, who to consume, what to take…
“Griffin!” I yelled, unsure if he could hear me. “The helmets!”
If he could take a few of them out, maybe I could make my own voice heard over the chaos, maybe I could save some of the oracles.
There was a resounding crack, and a hundred eyes saw Griffin leap through the air, his fist smashing into one of the helmets, cracking it neatly in two, his knuckles gleaming metallically as he turned.
Help him. I thought desperately. Help him. Help. HelpHelpHelp.
And a dozen hands turned on another helmeted man, clawing at it, tearing it apart, fingers breaking, blood flowing. I couldn’t watch.
Stop, I thought desperately. Another crack as Griffin took out another helmet, and I kept up the mantra Stop, Stop, Stop.
No one was listening, and finally I screamed, the buzzing so loud it was going to make my brain spill out my ears, my nose, every orifice.
STOP.
Everything went quiet, and I felt the ground coming up to meet me as I collapsed, the last thing I saw Griffin as he pulled the helmet off my head, his face streaked with blood and dirt.