Hydra
Names: HydrasweetHydradarlingHydrasweet little Hydrachakra killerHydra metaconcertHydrasthe four HydrasHydra headsHydra monstersthe Hydra-unitsthe creaturethe four disguised entitiesthe quadruplex mindKilnave FiendDubh Sìththe THINGthe beastHydra-childrenthe Hydra murdersthe multiplex monsterHydraunitHydra-unitMister High FiveFuryMadeleineHydrachildlittle oneParnellNew OnesMadeleine Hydra
First appears in Book 2: Jack the Bodiless, chapter 11 (8 RYE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, EARTH 24–25 AUGUST 2051)
Appearances
What you know
Book 2: Jack the Bodiless
- Ch 11Hydra is a resentful family member who secretly takes orders from the voice Fury and plans to harm the family, including bossy Adrienne.
- Ch 11Hydra uses coercion to put Cat and Brett to sleep, boards Doolittle, and takes the victim's life force, guided by Fury, then returns to bed unnoticed.
- Ch 21The Hydra is an eager, still inexpert killer obedient to Fury; it craves killing and says a previous kill made it grow.
- Ch 21Disguised as a trick-or-treating child, the Hydra attacked Margaret with a crown chakra drain, burning a lotus-shaped pattern into her scalp.
- Ch 21The Hydra is a mentally dependent being craving lifeforce, desperately eager to please Fury, and fears being disassembled if it fails.
- Ch 23Hydra is desperate to please Fury and eager to kill; it was told not to fail again after an earlier attack on Halloween.
- Ch 26Volatile, childlike telepathic killer who dislikes Marc, craves Fury's attention, and wants a nervebomb for Christmas; Fury forbids her to approach Davy.
- Ch 26Hydra suggests seducing Jack into joining them, since Jack might be a physical wreck and want what they offer.
- Ch 33Hydra is a predatory entity that has fed on victims this summer, hates Adrienne, and wants to take Marc, Jack and others after her metamorphosis.
- Ch 33Hydra is lured to attack Adrienne, who is swimming toward the catamaran; she will be the last victim of the summer.
- Ch 33Hydra absorbed the vital energies of Adrienne and six other operants. It leaves radially symmetrical lesions on its victims' bodies.
- Ch 33Hydra, not a shark, killed Adrienne, despite summer rumors of man-eating sharks.
- Ch 34A monster that kills as Victor did but is not Victor; Jack saw it as a fivefold image leaving seven drained chakras on victims.
- Ch 34Paul and Marc link Hydra to the deaths of Margaret Strayhorn, Brett McAllister, Adrienne, and four supposed shark victims.
- Ch 34Jack perceived Hydra as being sustained, controlled and loved by another mind, which was human, unlike Hydra.
- Ch 37Hydra is a metapsychic vampire that apparently kills by inflicting seven chakra-like burns, and is said to be a fivefold entity controlled by Fury.
- Ch 42Jack believes Hydra killed five operants simultaneously in New Hampshire and Vermont, and has matured so each of its five heads can kill alone.
- Ch 42Jack suspects Hydra is made up of Remillard siblings; the killer must be near or touching its victim, and all seven Dynasty magnates were traveling at the time.
- Ch 42In the dream-voice's threat, the Hydra would be sent to kill Marc by draining his vital energies and torturing him in psychocreative flames.
- Ch 43Hydra is a five-part (Fivefold) conspiracy of young operants serving Fury, who were jealous of Marc and plotted to kill him in the race.
- Ch 43Hydra was meant to eliminate opposing Magnates of the Concilium, perhaps even Davy MacGregor, but is now reduced to four shaken members.
- Ch 44Marc deduces Hydra is five minds touched by Victor in the womb: Celine, Quint, Gordo, Parni and Maddy, born in 2040.
- Ch 44The Hydra metaconcert of four young people was shaky and frightened, trying to be as efficient as when it had five members.
- Ch 46Four Hydra heads survive: Quint, Celine, Parni and Maddy. They are hiding because of a large uproar they expect over their actions.
- Ch 47Four children—Madeleine, Celine, Quentin and Parnell—were suspected of the Hydra metaconcert and remained at large for nearly twenty-three years, doing what Fury told them.
Book 3: Diamond Mask
- Ch 1A Hydra attack took place on Kauai, and Rogi regards the Hydras as poor, perverted beings.
- Ch 3Hydra is Fury's creature, made of several units, twenty-two years old, well educated, and nearly ready to operate in the Galactic Milieu; it feeds on mental lifeforce.
- Ch 3Hydra is Fury's only safe link to the matter/energy-space/time lattices, and would be the proper beneficiary of creativity enhancement.
- Ch 4Hydra secretly planted the idea of a holiday in Masha's mind while her screen was weakened after rejuvenation, laying groundwork for the trip to Islay.
- Ch 4Hydra watched the tea party at Masha's townhouse by farsight from a Bentley groundcar parked across the square.
- Ch 4Hydra is a four-component mind acting in metaconcert that, on Fury's orders, manipulated Masha and Dee into choosing Islay.
- Ch 4Hydra is on its first foray away from its place of exile, travelling first class on Fury's insistence.
- Ch 6The Keeper of the Islay Museum called the legend of the Kilnave Fiend stalking the moors sensational rubbish; the Dubh Sìth was a real dwarf.
- Ch 6Hydra is a group of hostile exotic minds acting in metaconcert; they plan to ambush and drain the life force of three researchers on Islay.
- Ch 6Hydra members consider Dee dangerous because her mindscreen is strong and she seems to sense Hydra, but decide the girl and Ken must be bypassed and left alive.
- Ch 6Hydra plans to lure the Strachans and Rowan Grant to Geodh Ghille Mhóire, subdue them silently and take them into a cave to feed on them.
- Ch 6The Kilnave Fiend is a legendary dwarfish black-bearded creature, which Dee fears and sees in her nightmare as a four-headed monster.
- Ch 6The Kilnave Fiend is a multi-faced entity that feeds on human lifeforce, burning the bodies and leaving ash patterns radially symmetrical.
- Ch 6Hydra is the Kilnave Fiend, a killer with several personas who fed on Viola, Robbie and Rowan and fled Earth via Unst Starport.
- Ch 6Hydra extracted the mental key to encrypted files from Robbie Strachan's skull and gave it to Fury.
- Ch 6Hydra previously killed Brett McAllister years ago; Lek had interrogated Marc about that case.
- Ch 7Hydra is a multiplex assassin of five minds, later shown to be Remillard children, formed by Fury; it first fed in 2051, killing Brett McAllister.
- Ch 7Hydra, jealous of Fury's interest in Marc, tried to kill him against Fury's orders; in 2054 one of its units died.
- Ch 7The four Hydra children were Celine, Quentin, Parnell and Madeleine, all fourteen, apparently won by Victor as fetuses during the 2040 deathbed prayer.
- Ch 7Four Remillard cousins living in exile on Islay who kill suboperants to feed on their lifeforce, acting together as a metaconcert.
- Ch 7Roughly twenty-nine suboperant islanders vanished on Islay, and the Hydra encouraged the Kilnave Fiend legend by letting people glimpse a dwarfish figure.
- Ch 8The four missing Remillard children lived under false identities on Islay for eight years and killed three Scottish researchers a week earlier.
- Ch 8The children escaped again without a trace; Paul believes only Fury could have helped them.
- Ch 8The latest Hydra murders may have been committed to protect Marc and his creativity enhancement research.
- Ch 9The Hydra, which Dee called the Kilnave Fiend, is made of the joined minds of four wicked adults including John Quentin and Magdala MacKendal.
- Ch 9The Hydra lived at the Sanaigmore farmhouse, killed many people including Dee's mother and her aunt and uncle, and has escaped Earth.
- Ch 12The Hydra are renegade creatures whose hiding place is unknown; the Remillards fear hostile magnates discovering a new Hydra-style crime first.
- Ch 12The Lylmik think the Hydras and Fury may prove maleficent or may paradoxically advance Unification; Unifex forbids them to interfere.
- Ch 13A multiplex entity made of several linked units (Quint, Celine, Maddy/Madeleine, Parni) who serve Fury and plot against Marc.
- Ch 13Hydra previously destroyed the old Okanagon-Dirigent after Celine lost control from lifeforce gluttony, ruining a planned switch and feeding.
- Ch 13The Hydra compels Marc through coercion, ordering him to put more wood on the fire, which distracts him just before Lynelle puts on the helmet.
- Ch 14The Hydra hunt has found nothing; the Hydras feed vampirically and leave no clues, and have altered mental signatures.
- Ch 16A killer thought dormant for fourteen years that has killed again and then vanished.
- Ch 17Hydra consists of four minds acting in metaconcert, taught by Fury; it can exert strong coercion for short periods and killed Dee's relatives.
- Ch 18Hydra committed atrocities in the Hebrides; four Hydra-units, probably all High Fives, remain hidden as fugitives.
- Ch 18Hydra consists of four units who committed murders at Islay in Scotland; one unit knows Rogi.
- Ch 19The paired voices who answer Fury speak as I/WE, urge killing the Girl, and fear her as dangerous as the Great Enemy.
- Ch 19The paired voices boast of controlling the EuroRebel contingent and of eliminating the Sánchez woman before she reported the Cambridge mental laser experiment.
- Ch 19A Hydra-unit is a monster with a metaconcert configuration; Dorothea identified one that her grandmother stumbled over.
- Ch 20Hydra's members attack by combining in metaconcert and singing a mindsong to drain a victim's lifeforce; they can also use physical weapons.
- Ch 22Hydra is a metaconcert of four humans merging into one monster that drains victims' lifeforce chakra by chakra, killing them painfully.
- Ch 22In Dee's vision the Hydra, servant of Fury, becomes four humans: a dark-haired woman, a blonde woman, a tall man and a brawny man.
- Ch 22The Hydra's three units did not combine in metaconcert when attacking Dee, fearing the emanations would draw Jack to them.
- Ch 22The Hydra is a being made of three human units, Madeleine, Celine and Parnell Remillard, which can combine in a life-devouring metaconcert.
- Ch 22Fury secretly shares a body with an innocent mind and would have to take it over if left alone.
Book 4: Magnificat
- Ch 3Fury's creature; Fury and Hydra killed Davy MacGregor's wife in 2051, disguised as suicide.
- Ch 5Anne proved the Hydra-children could not have set the Hitchcock Hospital fire, because their sonic-boom departure time, found via a student witness, did not fit the monitor timecode.
- Ch 6Hydra secretly sabotaged Anne Remillard's courier from a maintenance craft docked to a meteorsweeper satellite, using coercion to control the cerebroenergized pilot.
- Ch 6Hydra holds a covert, influential position within the Office of the Dirigent of Okanagon and plans to join the crash investigation team to muddy the waters.
- Ch 6Fury promises Hydra that Hydra will rule hundreds, later millions, of subordinate New Ones in a Second Milieu.
- Ch 7The pilot may have been coerced by a sneetched control helmet or been a fanatic; a Hydra is suspected of causing the crash.
- Ch 8Hydra nearly killed Marc years earlier by coercing him to crash his motorcycle, via the control-helmet's brainboard.
- Ch 10Hydra tried to drown Rogatien in the brook-trout attack and is thought to be a master of mental disguise.
- Ch 10Rogatien sees Hydra, a burly smiling man, among the waitrons at the wedding, but Marc cannot detect him.
- Ch 10The Hydra is a metaconcert of minds that can identify Marc's, Jack's and Dorothée's mental signatures only when combined.
- Ch 11Hydra, whose real name is Madeleine, is Fury's devoted servant, working among the Rebel leadership at Okanagon, and wants Marc as a slave.
- Ch 11Hydra will soon leave Okanagon for new work on the planet Astrakhan.
- Ch 19Hydra's fellow units Quentin, Celine and Parnell are dead, leaving Madeleine's persona Hydra alone.
- Ch 20Hydra, enraged and grief-stricken, had tried to coerce Marc with dreams and wanted him to love her sister; she is still to supply ova.
- Ch 20Hydra is devoted to Fury and vows to obey him; Fury promises she will rule Mental Man through seduction of the fetuses.
- Ch 20Hydra bemoans that Marc fell in love with the wrong sister.
- Ch 22Hydra is Madeleine, Marc's full sister, a fugitive from justice for twenty-six years whose whereabouts nobody knows.
- Ch 24Madeleine describes the New Ones as a new hundred-headed Hydra, whose secret no Rebel preceptor on Okanagon will learn.
- Ch 26Hydras are sociopathic killers who feed on lifeforce like vampires and seek to enslave the Galactic Mind; the Remillard Dynasty has had Hydra children.
- Ch 27Gordon, Quentin, Celine, Parnell, Madeleine and the New Ones are Fury's children, the Hydras, all now dead.
Connections
- ally ofDenisHydra serves and obeys Fury
- created byDenisFury calls Hydra one of the dear ones created with loving care
- enemy ofMargaret Strayhornimplied killer
- led byDenissustains and controls it
- enemy ofAdriennekilled her
- enemy ofMarc
- has memberGordon McAllister
- has memberCecilia Ashe
- has memberQuentin
- has memberParnellHydra-unit
- has memberMadeleineLynelle is a Hydra unit, apparently Maddy/Madeleine
- related toDenisHydra is a component of Furycontrolled by Fury
- enemy ofGrannymanipulates her mind
- inIslaylived there for eight years
- includesQuentin
- includesMadeleine
- enemy ofViola Strachankilled her
- enemy ofRemillard Foundation
- has memberClinton Alvarez
- enemy ofDiamond Mask
- member ofDenisHydra is Fury's servant
- includesCecilia Ashe
- includesParnell
- enemy ofJack
- ally ofParnell
- member ofOffice of the Dirigent of Okanagon
- family ofMarcfull sister (Madeleine)
Key moments
- Book 2 · Ch 11Hydra's night with Fury
At the family bonfire Fury contacts the Hydra, promising an Ultimate Hightrip by taking someone's life force, and tells it to wait until after midnight.
- Book 2 · Ch 11Murder of Brett
At the yacht club the Hydra, coached by Fury, coerces and sedates Cat, then attacks Brett. At dawn Cat finds his burned body with seven flower-shaped ash marks.
- Book 2 · Ch 21Fury brings the Hydra to the President's House
On Halloween, Fury has the Hydra lurk in the shrubbery near the President's House, intending possibly to attack Davy MacGregor, and orders it to study MacGregor and Strayhorn silently.
- Book 2 · Ch 21Hydra attacks Margaret Strayhorn
Margaret answers the door to trick-or-treaters, who are disguised operant children. The Hydra strikes at her crown chakra, burning her scalp in a lotus pattern. She blocks it and collapses, survives, and recalls only a presence.
- Book 2 · Ch 21Fury rebukes and recommits the Hydra
Fury and the Hydra communicate mentally after the failed attack. Fury promises painful further training during the trip to Orb, and the Hydra will try again.
- Book 2 · Ch 23Margaret murdered by Hydra
While Davy is away, Margaret unpacks in their Rialto apartment and Hydra, invisible, enters and destroys her mind. She screams 'Five' to Davy.
- Book 2 · Ch 23Fury orders the killing
Fury tells Hydra to drain and destroy the newly arrived woman tonight, disposing of the body and forcing a farewell note.
- Book 2 · Ch 26Hydra and Fury confer
Hydra proposes recruiting Jack; Fury tells her to stay away from Davy and wait, promising a nervebomb.
- Book 2 · Ch 33Fury sends Hydra after Adrienne
Fury and Hydra watch Adrienne swim toward the catamaran under coercion; Fury tells Hydra to take her out to sea as her last mindmeal of the summer.
- Book 2 · Ch 33Jack reveals Adrienne's death
Jack admits spying on Marc's kiss with Adrienne, then tells Marc she was killed minutes earlier by a Hydra controlled by Fury. Marc cannot find her aura.
- Book 2 · Ch 34Paul and Denis learn of Hydra
Marc transmits Jack's memory of Adrienne's killing, the seven drained chakras and the fivefold Hydra image to Paul and Denis, who urge secrecy.
- Book 2 · Ch 42Marc visits Jack
Marc overcomes his fear and visits Jack, who warns that Hydra has resumed killing and has matured, and asks Marc to warn Rogi and boost security.
- Book 2 · Ch 43Hydra plots to kill Marc
The five heads of Hydra argue and agree on Gordo's plan to T-bone Marc during the ice-cycle race, burn his fuel and drown him, against Fury's wishes.
- Book 2 · Ch 43Fury names Jack the Great Enemy
Furious at Hydra's failure, Fury concludes that Jack, who recognized Gordo's Hydra face, is the new Great Enemy he must kill himself.
- Book 2 · Ch 44Marc reveals Hydra theory to Rogi
Marc farspeaks Rogi, explaining Gordo was Hydra, that Hydra is five prenatally touched children, and that an adult Fury is behind it. He asks Rogi to guard Jack.
- Book 2 · Ch 47Aftermath of the fire and the stolen egg
Marc and Rogatien take Jack from the hospital; Anne's egg is found stolen untraceably, the four Hydra children vanish, and the Magistratum searches in secret without success.
- Book 3 · Ch 3Fury plans to eliminate the Edinburgh researchers
After witnessing Marc and Jack's E15 breakthrough, Fury decides the three Scottish researchers threatening the project must be killed by Hydra, lured out of the university and eliminated without trace.
- Book 3 · Ch 3Fury contacts Hydra after three years
Fury breaks its long silence and tells Hydra that its grand scheme for a Second Milieu has advanced and that a feast of masterclass operant lifeforce is coming.
- Book 3 · Ch 4Hydra plants the holiday idea
Hydra, exploiting Masha's weakened mental screen after rejuvenation, implants the idea of a holiday, then watches the family tea party in Edinburgh.
- Book 3 · Ch 4Dee picks Islay
Hydra telepathically implants an image of Islay in Dee and compels Masha; Dee's blind stylus point lands on Islay, dismaying Viola and Masha, who agree to go anyway.
- Book 3 · Ch 6Hydra plots the ambush
Telepathically, Hydra members revise their plan: leave Dee and Ken alive, lure the three researchers to Geodh Ghille Mhóire and subdue them silently to feed.
- Book 3 · Ch 6Hydra reports to Fury and flees
At Unst Starport, Hydra tells Fury of the Krondaku's discovery. Fury sends Hydra to Anami-o-Shima with new identities and a new corporate base, with orders to feed sparingly.
- Book 3 · Ch 7Hydra's murders and the investigations
From 2051 Hydra killed Brett McAllister, attacked and apparently killed Margaret Strayhorn, and killed Addie. Investigations of the Remillards, including the mind-probe, found no proof.
- Book 3 · Ch 7Hydra's years on Islay
The Hydra-children are tutored at home, then study by satellite; guardians leave or die, Uncle Fred is reported dead in 2059, and the Kilnave Fiend legend covers about twenty-nine suboperant disappearances.
- Book 3 · Ch 8Family agrees to hunt Fury and Hydra
After debating Fury's identity, motives and Rebel politics, the siblings reluctantly agree they must kill Fury and Hydra themselves; Denis then raises that Marc might be Fury.
- Book 3 · Ch 8Paul's decision on Marc and the Fury hunt
After family debate, Paul rules that Marc's research continues, condemns Fury and the Hydra-units subject to Lylmik approval, and assigns every family member a role in the hunt, coordinating with him.
- Book 3 · Ch 12Lylmik attend in Poltroyan bodies
Four Lylmik Supervisors take Poltroyan bodies at Atoning Unifex's urging, told to watch for impostors, and wonder whether Hydra have infiltrated Orb.
- Book 3 · Ch 13Seduction and compulsion
Lynelle visits Marc, offers him Okanagon funding, tries to seduce him, and is refused. She then mentally compels him to demonstrate the E15.
- Book 3 · Ch 13Lynelle dons the helmet
While Marc tends the fire under the Hydra's coercion, Lynelle puts on the CE helmet and uses the diamond to overpower him mentally, drawing him into an intense erotic and painful union that she says will teach him who he is.
- Book 3 · Ch 18Dorothée confides her secret
Dorothée tells Rogi about Fury and Hydra, her mother's death, Fury's dreams, and her Remillard suspect probabilities, after Rogi was hurt by her probing.
- Book 3 · Ch 18Dorothée reveals her plan to probe a Hydra suspect
Dorothée explains she can identify Hydra by its true metapsychic signature and intends to probe a suspect at Okanagon, with illegal evidence forcing her to use herself as bait. Rogi, alarmed, resolves to stop her.
- Book 3 · Ch 19Fury instructs Hydra
Fury orders the paired minds to attend Marc's party and watch the Girl for contact with the Great Enemy; they urge killing her.
- Book 3 · Ch 20Dee decides to hunt Hydra alone
Dee takes a walk to Spouting Horn, resolves to lure Hydra into a trap before her birthday, and decides to confide in neither Jack, Marc nor the Magistratum.
- Book 3 · Ch 22Dee relives the murders in the cave
At low tide Dee enters the sea-cave and relives her mother's, uncle's and aunt's murders with full empathy, confronts the Hydra in vision, and finds her inhibitions unchanged as the tide returns.
- Book 3 · Ch 22Bone chamber discovered
Exploring Falcon Cave, Dee climbs to a hidden chamber filled with thirty-three human skulls and bones, then finds three Hydra units waiting at the exit.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Hydra sabotages Anne Remillard's courier
From a docked maintenance craft, Hydra coerces the courier's pilot into a suicidal full-power descent onto the Okanagon Sector Base. Anne survives the crash badly burned.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Hydra reports failure to Fury
Hydra tells Fury that Anne will be incommunicado for months, plans to use her cover to join the investigation, and worries about Parnell's plan.
- Book 4 · Ch 7Anne's courier ship crash
Anne's express courier was deliberately crashed on Okanagon, possibly by a coerced pilot. She survived and said 'Hydra', raising fears of a hidden Hydra on Okanagon; the case is kept quiet.
- Book 4 · Ch 10Rogatien hides in Kauai
After surviving the drowning attempt, Rogatien flies to Kauai where Malama protects him, then returns for the wedding rehearsal.
- Book 4 · Ch 10Wedding of Jack and Dorothée
Jack and Dorothée marry in a nuptial mass. Rogatien spots Hydra among the waiters, but Marc cannot see him and blocks Rogatien's farspeech. After the kiss, Dorothée's diamond mask vanishes briefly.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Fury and Hydra confer
Hydra wants to attack the newlyweds but Fury forbids it, planning to draw Marc into its New Ones scheme and sending Hydra to Astrakhan after seducing Marc in dreams.
- Book 4 · Ch 20Fury consoles Hydra
After the meeting fails, Fury comforts Hydra, promising the plan will succeed using her ova and the Hydraseduction of the fetuses.