Legion's Arc

Chapter 5 of 22

Diana stood in the hollow between the two trunks. The swarm poured around her boots. She held Mark's checked shirt out to the black eyes in the mass. Behind her, boots crashed through the pines. The three brothers who had hunted Legion for their dead families broke into the clearing. They raised their guns. "Get down!" James shouted. He was the leader, the one who read the woods. His rifle swung toward the swarm. Beside him, Seth braced his pistol in both hands. Brandon crowded close, wild-eyed, his barrel already climbing. But Diana stood in the way. She would not move. "It's him," she said. "It's Mark." Seth's aim shifted past her. His finger found the trigger. In that moment his gun no longer pointed at the swarm. It pointed at Diana's back. Legion saw it. The man's part of Legion knew what a raised gun meant. The rage rose fast, the old hunger it fought every hour. This time it did not fight. It let go. Legion threw the whole swarm forward. Thousands of small bodies left the ground at once. They went past Diana on both sides, a brown flood, and hit the three men before the guns could fire true. One shot cracked into the trees. Then the brothers were gone under the rats. James swung his rifle like a club and struck nothing. The fat, round rat with the small black eyes was there too, in the thick of it, clinging to Seth's wrist. Seth screamed and dropped his pistol. Legion felt every bite. It felt the men fall. It felt them stop moving. Then the woods were quiet. Three shapes lay still on the moss. The guns lay beside them. The swarm pulled back. Legion drew it into a tight knot, gasping through a thousand throats. The human face rose again inside the mass. It had killed. It had wanted to. That was the thing it feared most about itself, and now it had done it in the open, in front of her. Diana stared at the bodies. She stared at the swarm. She still held the shirt. "You killed them," she whispered. Her voice shook. "You saved me, and you killed them." Legion could not answer. It had no mouth for words. It looked at her with Mark's black eyes and waited. Diana knelt slowly. She laid the checked shirt on the moss between them. Her hands trembled. "I don't know what you are anymore," she said. "But I saw what you did just now. My husband would never." She backed away. She did not run. She left the shirt on the ground and slipped into the dark trees alone. The swarm flowed forward and covered the shirt at last. Legion had the one thing it needed. It had won. But Diana had watched it become the monster, and the woman who could have believed in the man was gone.