Hive by Rachel Starr Thomson

Author:Rachel Starr Thomson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, battle, supernatural, demons, good and evil, quest, rachel starr thomson, the oneness cycle
Publisher: Rachel Starr Thomson

* * *

Tyler woke up when the sun came streaming through his window with a force far too great for early morning.

He had not prayed the night before. He had fallen asleep.

He realized this with a surprising sense of disappointment in himself. And frustration. Because he knew that as Oneness, he had a job to do in the world. Something about serving it and holding it together. And he didn’t even know how to do the most basic part of that.

A lot of good he was.

“Care to say what’s eating you?” Chris asked.

Tyler jumped. He hadn’t noticed Chris standing in his doorway, leaning on his noncasted shoulder.

“I can’t pray,” Tyler said. “The most basic job of the Oneness, and I can’t do it. I’m just feeling a little useless is all.”

“You’re wrong,” Chris said, looking behind as if to ascertain the hallway was all clear. As apparently it was. “Praying is not the most basic job of the Oneness.”

“What is?” Tyler asked, irked that Chris was pretending to know more than he did.

“Love,” Chris answered.

Ouch. Maybe he did know more.

“Why are you here?” Tyler asked. “I was sleeping.”

“It’s the crack of ten,” Chris answered. “And if you keep sleeping, they aren’t going to believe we’re well enough to leave. I came to rouse you and tell you to act like a man and come eat a man’s breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I am ready to get out of here.”

“Coming,” Tyler said, groaning as he pushed himself up. There was something about last night . . . something other than his failure to pray. Something he’d wanted to tell Chris. What was it?

The memories came back to his groggy mind. Rick. The hitchhiker.

The hitchhiker.

The hitchhiker with freaky black eyes.

Tyler half-leaped from the bed and nearly stumbled over his own feet. Chris was already out of the room and halfway down the hall.

“Chris, wait,” he called as he pulled on the khakis he’d been given yesterday. “Hold up a minute.”

Chris reappeared. “What?”

Tyler hesitated. “Why are you up so late?”

“Slept like a log. I tried to wake up earlier but couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?”

“I don’t know what they’re giving us, but they’re drugging us all up a lot more than I like.”

“Listen, Chris, I talked to the truck driver last night. He woke up. Ran out of pain meds.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes, and he said”—Tyler finished pulling on a shirt and headed for the door—“he said he can’t remember anything about the wreck, but he had picked up a hitchhiker and they were talking. And then he blanked out or something, because he can’t remember anything else. But he said the hitchhiker was a college kid with freaky black eyes.”

He stopped triumphantly.

“The Wizard,” Chris said.

“That’s my guess.”

Chris whistled. “So that accident wasn’t an accident.”

“Not that I’m an expert in the demonic, but I wouldn’t think so.”

“Which means,” Chris said slowly, “that maybe something wants us to be here.”

Tyler hesitated, his triumph needled by conscience and concern for these people. Chris was already antagonistic toward them, but Tyler still wasn’t convinced he knew enough about them.

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