The Falling Away (28 page)

“Think about what?”

“Biiluke. Are you on our side?”

45

Dylan bolted awake, his skin itchy and sweating.

You had a bad dream
, Joni said.
About me
.

Not now, Joni
.

Dylan stood, the muscles in his stomach protesting, and walked to the mirror above the sink at the back of the hotel room. The reflection in the mirror stared back at him, but offered no answers. He didn't look chosen. He looked normal.

Or at least what counted as normal in his world. “Biiluke,” he said to his reflection.

The reflection didn't answer.

Dylan shook his head, shuffled to the shower, turned on the spray as hot as he could stand it. Several minutes later—how long, he didn't know—he realized the water was going cold. So much for the water heater at the place guests called nicest and cleanest.

When he got out, he heard the television on low volume in the hotel room. Quinn was back. At least, he hoped it was Quinn. If it were someone else, there wasn't much he could do.

After getting dressed, he walked into the room, saw Quinn sitting on the bed munching a burger. She motioned to the bag on his bed. “Greasy cheeseburger and fries. Your arteries won't thank me, but your stomach probably will.”

“Thanks.” He grabbed the bag, unwrapped the burger, stuffed a few fries into his mouth, realizing just how famished he was. They ate in silence for a few moments until Dylan noticed what Quinn was watching: an episode of
Intervention
on A&E.

She picked up the remote and hit the mute, stared at him. “There's more, unfortunately,” she said.

He nodded. “The whole demon inside thing,” he said.

“Yeah. You think you're ready to talk about that?”

“Not really. But I don't think I'll ever be.”

“I told you before, people have the wrong idea about demons.” She nodded her head toward Webb's room next door. “Like right now, you probably think I just exorcised a demon from Webb.”

“Isn't that what you wanted to show me?”

“Yes. Well. That wasn't a demon, not specifically. Just a demonic influence, a demonic . . . virus. Webb was a Typhoid Mary, but he wasn't the typhoid itself. See the difference?”

“Not really.”

“Remember I said each infestation—HIVE, in this case—had a central figure?”

“Li.”

“Right. Li is—”

“The HIVE's queen bee.”

She looked oddly pleased. “Exactly. Or in this case, king bee. The whole HIVE is built around him, because—if you go back to my example—he's the typhoid itself. Or what he carries is the typhoid itself.”

“The demon.”

She nodded, went to wash her hands in the sink on the far side of the room. “Once again, people think of demons in terms of armies and wars, but that's not quite right. Demonic influence, the demonic virus, is everywhere. But the demons themselves aren't all that common. They don't need to be. Once people pick up the virus, they have a way of spreading it themselves.

“People carrying demons themselves, they're not as common, because being a carrier, a host for a demon, is . . . difficult,” she said, hanging up the towel once more. She remained leaning against the sink vanity. “The body wears down quickly. And so a new body needs to be found.”

You're the new body
, Joni's voice whispered inside.

“Yes,” Quinn answered, staring at him.

“How do I stop them from—”

It was the IV
, Joni said.

“Yes,” Quinn said again. “You already have the demon inside. From the IV you were given. The infection, well, that's tied to the breath, as you saw when we exorcised your friend Webb. The demon itself is tied to the heart. To the blood.”

Quickly, Dylan started dividing the room into quadrants and folding portions of the view away. He briefly thought of sending Joni to the kill box, then was reminded of Webb's words. He didn't want Joni inside the kill box anymore.

“You understand, we in the Falling Away are never to have any direct contact with an infestation. So I broke all the rules, getting inside the HIVE itself, pulling you out of there. Had to shoot you with a trank, because it's not like I could sit down and explain all this along the way.”

He stared at her open briefcase on the other bed, the disassembled gun parts, the tranquilizer darts, the Bible.

“Why?” he asked.

“I've been here in Montana monitoring HIVE since you showed up. In that time, Li has had to switch bodies three times. But I've also been here to . . . keep an eye on you. A chosen. Keep you off Li's radar.”

“Why?”

“Because being a chosen means God has marked you for something special. Something very good, or something very evil. I knew if Li found you, you'd take the path of evil. So I've been following you, keeping you away from the HIVE as best I could. When you went to the border, I thought it was safe to be here in Great Falls. I had another drone to neutralize, and I thought . . .”

“Yeah, I thought it would be a piece of cake too.”

“Anyway, you ended up in the very place I was trying to keep you away from. Big mistake.”

“I know the feeling. But so what? You just do your little prayer thing over me, cast out the demon, call in all your buddies in the Falling Away, and we go burn down the HIVE. End of story.”

Quinn shook her head, sat back. “Doesn't work that way. I can exorcise the people who are infected by demonic influence, but not the carriers themselves. That's like a whole other level, something way beyond what I can do. And the Falling Away itself isn't really an organization as such. By design. If we start putting in all these layers, hierarchies, the whole system starts breaking down—that's what happens in this fallen world. We are committed to living, or dying, as independent mercenaries, if you will.”

“Great. So you're saying there's really no hope, and no one to help us. Doesn't go real well with the little speech about faith and all things being possible.”

“It goes perfectly with that speech about faith, because it forces us to do precisely that: rely on faith. Faith does make all things possible. But that doesn't mean all things that are possible will happen. You were out for a long time. I prayed over you, tried to draw out the demon inside for hours. I'm still praying right now. It's beyond me. But it's not beyond God.”

“Well, that's reassuring.” He turned back to the television, watched the people talking to the camera on A&E's
Intervention
. Without a warning of any kind, Dylan began sobbing. He tried to stop, but that only made it worse. Tears streamed, and huge gasps wracked his lungs.

Quinn turned, stared for a few moments. “Don't worry about it. Just let it out. You have to.”

He blubbered for a few minutes, then got up and stumbled to the bathroom, found his towel, and wiped at his face. After a deep breath, he stepped back into the other room, where Quinn had now shut off the television.

“Amy gets help for her drinking, if that's what you're worried about,” she said, nodding to the TV. “I've seen that one before.” A bare smile crossed her face.

“Yeah. I've seen it before too. I've seen a couple dozen of them. That's—that's what set me off. When Webb and I first came to the HIVE, they kept us in isolation for a few days. Watched an
Intervention
marathon.”

For a brief moment, his vision swam. Colors—mostly purples and reds, but all colors of the spectrum—filled his vision, while the whisper of a thousand voices filled his mind.

It's starting
, Joni said inside.
The demon is growing
.

Thanks, Joni. You're a big help
.

“What is it?”

Dylan realized he'd closed his eyes, and he opened them to look at Quinn. “Just a little woozy,” he said. “Been a few days since I've had a burger—that whole granola and veggie thing at the HIVE, you know.”

He tried a smile, but Quinn wasn't buying.

“I also got shot with a tranquilizer dart, dragged to a hotel, and possessed by an ancient demon,” he said. “It's a little overwhelming.”

Quinn nodded.

“So,” he said, taking a deep breath. “What now?”

Quinn munched on a fry, stared at him thoughtfully. “I don't know,” she said.

“Not really the answer I was looking for.”

“I know, but . . . it's the truth.”

He ignored a dull pain in his stomach, turned to the TV. “We can't stay here. You said that. We have to do something with Webb.”

“Yeah.”

“And I only have a bit of time left before the demon . . . takes over.”

“Maybe a few hours. Maybe less.”

“So you know what you have to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have to kill me.”

She shook her head. “No way. Demons use humans as hosts, but their lives aren't tied to their hosts. They can live outside a human for—well, no one really knows how long. They may well be immortal; certainly much closer to it than we are.” She ran a hand over her face. “In any case, I kill you, Li just jumps to a new body. Not as quick and easy for him, not like the transfusion he did with you. Quick transfusion, he can take over in a matter of hours. But if he has to force his way in, more like a couple weeks or a month.”

“I'll take that as a no.”

“You're right: no, I won't kill you. All that does is kill you, and then I can't be sure where the demon has gone until he finds a new host. And I can already see you have that kind of idea yourself—maybe sneak away, kill yourself, solve the problem for everyone. But it would only create problems for me, and it wouldn't solve your two biggest problems.”

“What are those?”

“Shame and self-hatred.”

She's good
, Joni said inside.

She can hear what you're saying, you know
.

Quinn made no response, so Dylan cleared his throat and spoke again. “Okay,” he said. “So what you're basically saying is: there's nothing you can do, there's nothing I can do, to get me out of this situation.”

“Pretty much.”

“So why'd you go through the trouble of kidnapping me?”

“You don't have the whole picture yet,” Quinn said, crossing the room and sitting on the other bed beside her briefcase. “I don't have the whole picture. I can tell you, even in the midst of this, God has a plan to pull you through it.”

She took his hand uncomfortably. “That's why I came to get you, even though I wasn't supposed to. That's why you're here. Because I felt God calling me to do it. Just the way Paul heard God calling him to recruit me. And that's the same thing you heard from Webb.” She paused. “And from Claussen.”

“But once you saw the IV marks, once you figured out I'd had the transfusion, once you knew I was a lost cause, why didn't you just leave me, go on to whatever's next?”

“That what you think you are, a lost cause?”

“Well, it's true, isn't it?”

Quinn paused for a few moments, seemed lost in thought. “Because the people who are lost causes are the people who change history.”

Dylan snorted, took the last bite of his hamburger, now cold and congealed, chewed for a few moments. “I've changed the History Channel. Does that count?” He ran his hand through his hair, felt something in it. When he pulled his hand away, he saw a large swath of his hair had come off in his fingers.

“You're losing your hair,” Quinn said quietly. “Going bald.”

“Like Li,” he said.

“Like Li.”

He went to the mirror, looked at his reflection with a lage swath of hair now missing. He grabbed the towel he'd used after showering. Evidently he'd been occupied by other thoughts; the towel held several large chunks of hair as well. After a few moments he put the towel on his head, rubbing it as hard as he could, flaking away his close-cropped hair, an act of bravado in the face of the coming darkness.

Bring it on, Li
, Joni said inside.

And inside, he felt a low chuckle. Not from Joni, but from someone else. Something else.

He turned away from the mirror, looked at Quinn on the bed. “You have to leave, you know,” he said. “You and Webb.”

“I know.”

“Because there's still more you haven't told me. When Li infects someone with the virus, someone like Webb, he can sense where they are, what they're doing.”

“Unless they get exorcised. But Li's in transition right now—leaving his old body, moving into a new one. Not totally active in either yet. So even if he was able to get a sense of Webb's location before, he needs to finish his—”

“His transformation. Inside me.”

“Yes.”

“But once he does that, he'll have access to my thoughts, my memories. If I know where you two are, he'll be able to find you.”

“Yes.”

“So you leave. Both of you.”

“Yes.”

“You're being awfully agreeable.”

“I've got two trucks,” she said. “One is an old Silverado I bought. The other is Andrew's new Dodge Ram.”

“You took Andrew's Dodge?”

“Had to take the bus to his place to get it and bring it back here. Plus he wasn't using it anymore.”

“Good point.” He paused. Then: “They kept us in isolation during . . . detox. Kept us hidden from the police and the FBI and . . .” He let his voice trail off. “None of that really happened, did it?” he said quietly.

“None of what?”

“No police were ever looking for us. Or the FBI. No one.”

“No. Li was making sure of that. Told you he was keeping you safe from the outside world so you'd accept you were there. Fit in so well with the detox story. You become part of HIVE, and you think he saved you. But instead, he just invited you to walk into the fiery furnace.”