“I’ll have to ask Mary about that,” said Antimony. Her hand moved in a complicated pattern, and she was suddenly holding an actual fireball. It flickered orange and red and blue, looking strangely like a pom-pom from her cheerleading days, if the pom-poms had been actively terrifying. “Later. Maybe when it’s time to hide your body.”
“I would really, really prefer it if you didn’t kill me,” said Mark. “I didn’t have to come here.”
“Yet you came,” Antimony purred. Sam loomed up behind her, apparently done with his adventures in bondage. “Your mistake.”
The cuckoo’s eyes flashed white. “Living things want to stay alive,” he said quietly. “Please don’t remind me how much I want to survive this. You won’t like what happens if you do.”
“We have you pretty solidly outnumbered,” said Elsie, joining our little cluster. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dad heading for the back of the barn. Whether it was to get a chainsaw or find Aunt Evie and Uncle Kevin was anybody’s guess.
Aunt Evie and Uncle Kevin. Fuck. I turned back to Mark, raising my fist back into the perfect punching position. “Where’s my mother?” I asked.
“She’s not wearing one of those pesky telepathy blockers,” said Mark. “I could ‘hear’ her coming as I was on my way in. She wasn’t hard to evade. I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re worried about. I came here to ask for your help. Hurting people would be contrary to my own interests. And I’m a cuckoo. Everything I do is about my own interests. Now please. What can I do to convince you that I come in peace?”
“Let us cut your hands off?” suggested Elsie.
“What else can I do to convince you that I come in peace?” Mark eyed Elsie, clearly alarmed. “You’re awfully vicious for one of the self-proclaimed good guys. Are you always like this?”
“Only with the people who deserve it,” said Elsie. “You deserve it.”
“Because I’m a cuckoo?” Mark scowled. “I expected resistance. I expected some honest caution. I didn’t expect bigotry. Not after everything Sarah had to say about you people.”
I didn’t think. I just moved. My fist slammed into his face hard enough to knock him free of my grip. He fell, sprawling in the doorway, and stared up at me with narrow, white-tinted eyes as he raised one hand to rub his chin.
“Don’t say her name,” I spat, taking a stiff-legged step toward him. “Don’t say it, don’t think it, don’t do anything unless you want me to hit you again.”
“That’s going to make this difficult, since I’m here because I need you to help me save her.” He touched the trickle of clear liquid now connecting his nose to his upper lip and grimaced. “You hit hard.”
“You can thank us for that,” said Dad, now fully clothed, as he walked over to join us. He looked around our little group before shaking his head. “Five on one isn’t fair, even when the one’s a cuckoo. Give the boy some space. He didn’t have to come here, and if he’s really trying to help Sarah—”
“I am,” said Mark hurriedly. “Look. Tie me to a chair or something, okay? You’ll trust me more if you know I can’t touch you, and you need to trust me. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Before what?” I demanded.
“Before Sarah finishes the morph into her fourth instar and the rest of my hive uses her to destroy the world.”
I suddenly felt like I wanted to vomit and pass out at the same time. It wasn’t the most pleasant of sensations.
“Oh,” I said faintly. “Is that all?”
* * *
Mom, Aunt Evie, and Uncle Kevin had all come back to the barn while we were in the process of tying Mark to the chair. He’d held perfectly still during the process, not complaining at all, not even when we got a little overenthusiastic with the knots.
“I don’t think anyone has ever successfully captured a cuckoo alive before, and now we have two in one night,” commented Mom, looking approvingly at the cuffs holding Heloise to the table. “Does this mean we can take one apart?”
“Again, really bloodthirsty for the good guys,” said Mark. “Do you ever chill?”
“Sarah’s missing,” said Antimony. “Your friend over there tried to use my brother to murder my cousin. Oh, and you just told us your hive was planning to destroy the world. Why would we chill, exactly?”
“Because you’re the good guys,” said Mark.
“Anyone who thinks good means chill needs to spend more time with my family,” said Elsie. She had produced a nail file from her purse and was meticulously filing her nails, checking them carefully for snags and imperfections. She managed to look completely unconcerned with everything that was going on around her. That was when she was at her most dangerous.
“We’ve never been chill,” she continued, still filing. “Chill doesn’t save anybody. We like saving people. The ones who can be saved, anyway. Some of them were always beyond salvation.” She blew on her nails. “Those ones, we bury in the woods.”
“Where is Sarah?” I demanded.
Mark turned to look at me, eyes glinting white again. “Who makes those charms for you people? They deserve a raise. I can’t even get past the first layer.”
“I make them,” said Annie. “Me and James. Who your friend over there aimed like a gun and fired. I’m not happy with her.”
“She’s not my friend,” said Mark. He leaned back as far as the ropes would allow, looking at us all one by one. “Do you not understand how cuckoos work? We don’t have friends. We don’t have families. We’re every man for himself, all the time, from the day we’re born until the day we die. A hive only comes together when absolutely necessary, and it’s never for a good reason.”
“So why did yours come together?” I asked.
“For Sarah.” He looked momentarily almost ashamed. It was a strange expression to see on a cuckoo. “How much do you know?”
“What?”
“You heard me.” His eyes flashed white again. “Everyone knows about you. The Prices. The Healys. You were the first people to figure out that we existed, and keep knowing that we existed, even when we tried to make you forget. It’s because of you that this world has turned dangerous for us.” He paused to chuckle, darkly. “Well. Because of you, and because of video surveillance. We can change a mind, but we can’t change a camera. Another few years and this whole world is going to be like London. Too filmed to risk. Still, we might have held out a few more decades if it weren’t for you people screwing everything up for us. So I’m asking you, how much do you know? I need to know where to start.”