Exile: Book 1 in The Oneness Cycle Read online

  “Angels and demons,” Tyler said. “Everyone knows about those. Why haven’t I ever heard of this . . . this . . .”

  “Because the Oneness is the most important of the three,” Diane answered. “And thus the most hidden.”

  “Come on,” Tyler said, leaning back, his eyes widening. “More than angels?”

  Reese found her voice. “Angels are just messengers,” she said. “And servants. Who do you think they serve?”

  “God,” Tyler promptly answered.

  Reese ventured a faint smile. “Well, yes. Everything does. But more . . . specifically, angels are servants to us.”

  She caught herself, and the smile vanished completely. “To them.”

  Tyler opened his mouth to ask another question, but Diane jumped in. This conversation could go on all night, and she wasn’t sure they had the time. She was sure Reese didn’t have the desire, or likely the stamina, for it either. She thought of trying to soften her questions but decided that quick was merciful.

  “What was that demon doing here if you’re not part of the Oneness anymore?”

  “I’m not . . . it was a renegade. Not part of an organized force. Most likely it was just going for a joy kill.”

  “Stupid,” Chris said. Diane raised her eyebrows. He was quick, her kid—too quick for his own good. He clarified: “To act as a renegade—to work against the best interests of the whole force like that.”

  “They are a house divided. That’s why they will lose,” Reese said.

  “But you had a sword,” Diane continued. “Chris said he saw one in your hand.”

  Reese looked at the floor between her hands. “I don’t know why that happened. Apparently I haven’t . . . haven’t lost everything yet.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth before there were tears tracking down her face. Diane sighed and stood, putting a motherly hand to Reese’s hair. “So you’re sure there’s no more threat? Nothing is coming after you tonight?”

  Reese’s voice was misery itself. “It’s not likely, but I can’t make promises. I don’t know what another renegade might do.”

  Chris stepped forward, the claymore above the fireplace a suitable backdrop to his big-shouldered frame. “Good, then,” he said. “You can take my bed for the night—I’ll sleep out here.”

  “I—all right.”

  Diane saw the raw gratitude that flashed in the girl’s eyes. Her son had better watch his step. He was a fine, good-looking, strong young man, and this girl was vulnerable.

  And dangerous.

  * * *

  “Well?” Chris asked.

  Tyler and Reese had retired to opposite corners of the house. Diane stayed by the flickering fire, warming her feet. They hadn’t warmed since she entered the cottage. Chris had disappeared for a little while, rummaging around in his room for blankets and a pillow, which he dumped on the couch before crossing his arms and regarding his mother with an air of expectation.

  So much like Douglas.

  “Well what?” Diane asked.

  “All that stuff she said about the Oneness being a force and like angels . . . servants of God.”

  “All true. There are more things in heaven and earth, my boy, than most of us have ever dreamt of.”

  “But what is it . . . this Oneness thing? That girl in my room—is she some kind of angel or ghost or . . .”

  “No, no,” Diane said, shaking her head. “She’s as human as we are. The Oneness is people. But more than people, too.”

  “Why haven’t I ever heard of them?”

  Diane shrugged. “They’re hidden.”

  “Because they’re treacherous?”

  “Because they’re plain.” Diane reflected a moment. “I have never met one who was trying to hide. Hidden in plain sight—you’ve heard that saying? The Oneness is like that. Angels and demons are mysterious, terrifying, beautiful—supernatural. So we talk about them. But the Oneness are just there. They’re hidden because no one thinks they’re worth paying attention to, except once in a while when they . . .”

  Her eyes clouded over for a moment at a memory—a family huddled in her kitchen, fleeing the rancour of men. It had been Douglas who brought them home. Douglas, the unbeliever, who insisted they hide them. Douglas who turned their pursuers away.

  And Douglas who was undone by them. By their love for each other.

  Their oneness.

  “. . . when they get in the way,” she finished lamely.

  “So they’re just people,” Chris said. “Then why are they any different from you or me?”

  Diane gazed into her son’s face and saw her husband there again. “Do you know the story of Babel?” she asked.

  He frowned and scratched his nose. “Rings a bell.”

  “The Tower of Babel,” Diane prompted. “Old story . . . one of the oldest. It’s in the Bible.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think I know it.”

  “Thousands of years ago, near the beginning of time, all mankind got together to build a tower to heaven,” Diane said. “It was to be a monument to them and lift them into the very presence of God. But it was an affront to him too, because their hearts were rebellious and evil. Nevertheless, they started their building. And God looked down and said, ‘The people are one, and behold, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them.’”

  Chris looked confused. “Go on.”

  “So God took it upon himself to stop them. He came down to the Tower of Babel disguised as a man, and he cursed the people so their tongues became confused. Where before they had all spoken the same language, now their speech became gibberish in one another’s ears. Without the ability to understand one another, the people were forced to separate, and they scattered themselves across the face of the whole earth.”

  “Interesting story,” Chris said.

  Diane managed a thin smile. “There is another story. Not so many people know this one.”

  He smiled back—a big, generous smile. “But you do.”

  “Mankind never did build his tower to heaven. Many years—thousands of years—later, a man from heaven built a ladder to earth. He promised to send the Spirit to earth, to work a miracle in all who wait to receive it. His followers gathered together in a room and waited for that Spirit to descend. Suddenly, they all began to speak in languages they had never known before, and every one of them understood every other.”

  “A reversal,” Chris said.

  “Exactly. And the Oneness was born.”

  “How long ago was that?” Chris asked, clearly sceptical.

  “No one knows for sure—a few thousand years, give or take.”

  Chris leaned back against the couch and folded his arms across his big chest. “Uh-huh. What do they do?”

  Diane paused, her mind flipping through hundreds of still images, conversations, insights. “I think—”

  She smiled and spread out her hands, beseeching Chris to believe her.

  “I think they hold the world together.”

  * * *

  It rained all night, and when the sun rose, it cast its golden, rosy light on a wet, glistening world. April watched it come up from her perch on the rooftop, looking down over the sharply sloping streets to the neighbourhood and the harbour at the base of the cliff.

  She heard the sound of a window being pushed open and a grunt as Richard climbed out of the second-story lookout. He made his way gingerly across the shining shingles and sat down next to April, handing her a warm travel mug.

  She took a sip. Coffee. Nice and strong.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. You see anything?”

  April turned her eyes back to the bright horizon, light shining off the bay waters beyond the town, and tried to scan the streets. The sun in her eyes made their gloom harder to penetrate. “Not yet.”

  They made an odd couple—the six-foot-two black man with a neatly trimmed beard and close-shaved hair, wearing a suit, and the five-foot-two blonde with her hair in a ponyta
il and a blanket swathed around her shoulders.

  The coffee warmed her quickly, and she shed the blanket. The sun warmed her bare shoulders and brightened the rose-vine tattoo inked across her right. She wore a tank top and track pants and sneakers. Ready to run.

  Richard twined his fingers and pushed them outward, cracking his knuckles. “I gotta go to work. Mary’s coming with breakfast. You need anything else?”

  “Naw. I’ll be fine.” She turned and met his eyes, smiled brightly. His care emanated back at her, warming her like the sun, and he smiled at her smile.

  “Good day at work,” she said.

  “Thanks. You take care.”

  “Of course. I’m ready for anything.”

  “You know what pride comes before.”

  “All right, almost anything. But I’m not alone. So I’ll be fine.”

  He grinned and pushed himself back up, careful of his footing. She laughed at the wet shingle debris clinging to the back of his suit.

  “Brush off!”

  “You got it!”

  She turned her eyes back to the streets as Richard left. It was still hard to see, but what she was looking for would stand out. To her, anyway.

  There were a multiplicity of gifts in the Oneness, no two exactly alike. April had eyes to see.

  There. She saw the glint of metal, the mad pedalling, and the desperation.

  Right on time.

  The boy was only about a block away, flying down a narrow, cobbled street toward the glimmering waters of the harbour. He would be almost impossible to catch. Which was fine, because she didn’t need to catch him. She only needed to follow.

  April disdained the window and stairs; traipsing through the house would take too much time. She cast off her blanket completely and abandoned the travel mug in the eaves trough where it wouldn’t roll away; grabbing the drainpipe with a gloved hand, she slid down and landed hard on the soft earth. Her legs were moving almost before she’d fully landed. To run. There was nothing like it.

  It was a quick sprint over level ground for fifty yards before she plunged downhill on the street leading through town. The run turned to a jog, her whole body jarring as she tried to outwit gravity and stay on her feet. The town before her still shone in the rising sun.

  The boy on the bike disappeared over a second downhill plunge, and April picked up her speed, regaining sight of him just as he rode straight into the little cluster of fishing shacks and boathouses at the centre of the harbour. Beyond them, the sun was still rising. But this boy had been swallowed instead by shadows.

  It took her ten minutes to reach the gloomy little huddle of huts. The sky overhead was clear and the bay calm; the storm had vanished as storms always did. But here it was dark, shadows extending from the closely constructed buildings. Boat masts stuck up behind them, bobbing slightly.

  “Hello?” April called, worming her way between a couple of especially tight shacks. The bike lay abandoned outside them. The passage was narrow enough that she had to angle herself slightly to get through, and the slopes of both roofs met in the middle to plunge the space into shadow. Old plastic bottles and a gas can littered it. She could see a door on one side, closed, but definitely there.

  She stared intently at it and saw a sparkle of light from beneath the door. Yeah, he was here.

  With a tentative hand on the door handle, she called out again. “Anybody in there?”

  No answer. She turned the handle and pushed.

  The door opened easily. Inside, the shack was even gloomier than its side entranceway. One window, facing south, was covered with grime. It let in just enough light for April to make out the nets, stacks of lobster traps, and cases of bottled water stored in most of the shack’s space.

  The boy sat crammed between two stacks of water, cases piled six high. His hair was blond and unruly, long enough to hang in his face. He was ten, maybe eleven. Maybe thirteen. April hadn’t been able to guess his age, and she hadn’t asked.

  April took a step closer, holding out her hand like an offering. “Hey, Nick, are you okay?” she asked. Knowing full well he wasn’t.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice quavering.

  “I saw you riding down here . . . thought you might ride right into the bay.”

  He smiled at that. “I’m a good rider.”

  “So,” April asked, “you come here a lot?”

  “Most days.”

  “What’s the attraction?”

  Nick shrugged. “It’s quiet.”

  She let her eyes leave his face for a moment and noticed a stack of comic books shoved under the pallet of water. The space where he was sitting was less dusty, less cobwebbed, than most corners of the shack. Quiet. April thought of all the times she’d seen him tearing down here on his bike and wondered what kind of noise he was running from. Her own memories gave her plenty to work with—broken glass, shouting. The curses and the names. She grimaced. She’d excise it all in a heartbeat if she could—all of life before the Oneness. But Richard said her past was why she could see like she could—why, in this case, she was sensitive enough to know a boy fleeing and hiding when others thought he was just being a normal kid, flying down the hill for the sake of adrenaline.

  She’d been reaching out to Nick for a couple of weeks now, finding him loitering around the village and buying him soda or lunch or whatever. She’d have to add comic books to the list. He treated her warily, and she didn’t ask him much about his life. Just talked to him and let him get comfortable in her presence.

  “Listen, you had breakfast? You wanna go get some food?”

  His eyes had that bright look in them. She spared him the need to answer and just reached out her hand.

  He took it, and she pulled him to his feet.

  * * *

  They were waiting outside the fishing shack, silent and unmoving as mountains. One a big man, well over six feet and built like a hammer; the other smaller, grossly tattooed, impatient. They stood on either side of the narrow passage between shanties, where they couldn’t be seen by anyone coming through.

  April knew they were there a second before she stepped out—a shadow, a sound, something gave them away. She thrust a hand behind her to stop Nick and said very softly, “Get back in there now.” She tried to follow suit, but the kid was too slow getting out of the way; the smaller man hooked her elbow and yanked. Her instincts blazed and she tried to turn on him, pulling on her arm and lashing out with her leg simultaneously, but there was no time; no room. She was out of the passageway, and Hammer-man landed a blow to the back of her head.

  Chapter 3

  Diane hadn’t slept much since her visit to the boys’ cottage on Wednesday night. She’d found herself pacing the dark rooms of her house in the wee hours that night, unhappily contemplating memories and things she knew, things she had seen. Reese’s face hung in the midst of all her thoughts, the misery in her eyes. Was it true? Could the Oneness be broken?

  And if it could, what other disaster might follow?

  Thursday passed in a blur of the same thoughts, the same worries. She didn’t call the boys and they didn’t call her. A brightish morning gave way to rain again at night, another night like the one when Reese had come, and drove Diane’s mood deep into clouds and recollections she didn’t want.

  It stopped raining just half an hour or so before dawn, and Diane fell asleep at about the same time. When the sun rose she woke just enough to pull the curtains tight shut against it, and so it was nearly noon before she found herself in the kitchen, frying bacon, wondering how the boys were getting on and what their visitor meant and was going to mean.

  It was always possible Reese would turn out to belong somewhere, to be heading somewhere, and she would just thank her rescuers and leave. But Diane knew it wasn’t going to happen that way. Chris wouldn’t allow it; he was too protective—he would insist on seeing her home, making sure she wasn’t really just going off to try to harm herself again. And Tyler was too perceptive; h
e would see through her if she lied.

  Besides, she didn’t belong anywhere. Nowhere except with the Oneness, and if she was telling the truth, she could not go back to them.

  And if she had somewhere to go, she would have gone yesterday already.

  Diane sighed and leaned against the stove. She didn’t really want to think about all this. She wanted the world to go on turning like it had for so many years, with nothing wrong, nothing calamitous about to come down on their heads.

  But she knew better. Calamity is always hanging over our heads—all of us, every day. Something is always wrong. And she of all people knew that.

  “Maybe it’s all a mistake,” she said out loud.

  A knock on the back door startled her so badly she nearly knocked the frying pan off the stove. She switched the gas off and took the three steps across the tiny kitchen to the door.

  “Yes?”

  She didn’t know the man standing on her doorstep, though she’d seen him around the village. He was tall, dark-skinned, trim. But she knew the woman standing beside him. Short, wiry, Diane’s own age. Piercing grey eyes and white strands of hair highlighting darker locks. Diane closed her eyes for the barest of instants and saw the kitchen again, the family, Douglas hiding them, keeping them away from the mob hunting them down. A man and his wife, four children, and this woman, the man’s sister.

  “Hello, Mary,” Diane said.

  “I’m sorry to come without any warning,” Mary answered. “This is Richard.” She hesitated. “May we come in?”

  Diane opened the door all the way and stood against it without a word. Mary nodded and led the way into the kitchen. The three of them took up the whole room. Their presence was oppressive—bigger than the people who created it. But Diane did not ask them to come further into the house.

  “We need your help,” Mary said.

  Diane cleared her throat. “I thought you had eyes?”

  “We do.” It was Richard who answered. “That’s why we’ve come. Her name is April. She went missing yesterday morning.”

  “Missing?” Diane choked.

  Mary’s expression was earnest and direct. “She went out on a job, one she said would only take her a couple of hours. She was supposed to be back in time for breakfast. She didn’t come. We got worried and started looking for her yesterday evening.”