The Conformity Read Free Page A

mind is absent. And the void calls. The void wants to be filled.”
    â€œSo, while you were slipping out, something else was slipping in.”
    He nodded. “You understand me.”
    â€œWhat does this have to do with my brother?”
    Priest reached for the computer, opened another video file. The screen filled with light. A backyard, somewhere in America. A familiar backyard, wooden fence, trees showing over the top. I’d seen this one before, when I first came here to the Society of Extranaturals and Quincrux stuffed me in a hole in the ground and showed me videos of Vig being beaten. That video was the leash that kept this mongrel dog from jumping the fence and going feral once more.
    â€œI’m so sorry, Shreve,” Priest said.
    Two boys stood in the yard, looking up into the sky. A shadow fell over them. One turned, a horrified look on his face, mouth opened in a scream of terror. The other thrashed, twisting, as some invisible hand took him in its grip and lifted them both from the ground.
    A walking tower of human flesh appeared above the tree line. My brother and his foster brother rose into the air to join it.
    Jack put his hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t even known he was standing by me.
    â€œSo, Shreve,” Priest said, very distinctly. “I need you to be present, here. To commit to us, without reservation.”
    I thought I knew desolation. I thought I knew grief. There was nothing for me then. Nothing except saving Vig. My heart throbbed in my chest. My tongue tasted of ashes and ruin.
    It took a while before I could speak again.
    â€œAnswer a question for me,” I said.
    â€œAnything you wish, Shreve.”
    â€œWhen you were a Rider—” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes. I tapped my temple. “When you were riding around in people, you kept telling me to go to Maryland. I don’t get why.”
    Priest’s face stiffened, like someone had just pricked a long pigsticker into his belly.
    â€œCertain minds are like beacons, Shreve,” he said through bloodless lips. “You have seen them, have you not?”
    I thought of all the people I’ve known, both in real life and in the twilight of the shibboleth. The match flames of minds. Some blazed bright. Some shone dull. But some incandesced beyond all imagining. “Yes.”
    â€œOf all the humans I’ve ever encountered, the brightest, the most luminescent, the most brilliant consciousness I’ve ever known was Hiram Quincrux.” He raised his index finger. “Save one.”
    â€œOne?”
    He smiled again, but it was forced. The finger lowered and pointed directly at me.
    â€œWhat are you saying?”
    â€œYou think Hiram gave you this terrible gift? He did not. He only awakened it.”
    I tried to digest that, but it was all too much. “That doesn’t change anything,” I said. “Why did you tell me to go to Maryland?”
    In the fluorescent light of the Admin conference room, his face—once Quincrux’s loathed visage—looked ashen and wan. “I thought you would draw it out,” he said simply. “If not you, then Quincrux, who pursued you so closely.”
    Another bomb. The guy was just full of them.
    I laughed. It was too funny. For a long while, I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. “I was bait! I knew you were too good to be true. You were going to use me as bait!”
    â€œWe are at war,” Priest spat. He’d lost his composure at last. And there you go. I hadn’t lost it. I could still get under the skin of the best of them. “I thought if I could draw the entity out by presenting it with something as bright and full of life as you, I could reseat myself in my own flesh and then contend with the monster.”
    â€œBait,” I said, shaking my head in wonder at it all. “Hey, Jack?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œMeet the new boss,” I said. “Same as the old