Nearly panicked, I pulled every sleep roll and blanket I could find from the cargo area and set them on the third-row seat, to keep them out of the dusty badlands air. “I need you to start counting the passing seconds as soon as the contraction ends. I don’t have a watch, so we’ll have to use the revered one-Mississippi method, which I learned in kindergarten.” Sister Margaret had been teaching us to estimate the drying time for white school glue, but I was sure she’d be pleased by my unconventional application of the knowledge.
While the demon counted silently, laboriously moving her numb lips with each unspoken number, I spread another blanket beneath her and across the rest of the middle bench seat. Then I dove into the cargo area again in search of the last packet of wet wipes, which Melanie had been saving for the baby’s first badlands bath, in case we weren’t within reach of a freshwater source when her labor began.
As near as I could tell, we weren’t within reach of anything.
When I’d laid out everything we could possibly need—at least, everything we had on hand—I sat on the end of the bench seat and spent the next hour alternately watching for hostile company from the badlands and reading from the pregnancy book I’d found wedged between the passenger’s seat and the center console, with one hand on my sister’s belly so I could feel the onset of the next contraction. Meshara couldn’t feel them anymore, either from the inside or the outside, but she was still able to count out the seconds between spasms.
The contractions started out at six-minute intervals, and I got good at mentally dividing seconds into minutes. But by the time the sun began to sink toward the western horizon, Meshara’s water had broken, her stolen uterus was contracting every three minutes, and she was almost sure she felt a little pressure in her pelvic floor.
Even after reading the emergency delivery section of the book four times, I wasn’t sure exactly what the “pelvic floor” was, but if she was feeling anything at all, the sensation must have been quite strong.
I told myself that when the contractions were two minutes apart, I’d make myself “check” her cervix. Or at least make sure the baby wasn’t about to fall out.
I was trying to wrestle Meshara out of Mellie’s maternity pants, with little help from the increasingly useless demon, when the soft growl of an engine startled me upright so fast I actually hit my head on the roof of the SUV.
“Hang tight!” I shouted, to be sure she’d hear me, as I scrambled out of the vehicle and stared down the unmaintained highway at the miles we’d already driven.
“Wha…?” Meshara called, and I wasn’t sure whether she was asking a question or starting the contraction count all over again.
Within seconds the approaching vehicle came into sight, a small, dark blur in the distance, speeding around obstacles and spitting up clouds of dust beneath its tires every time it veered off the road to avoid a collision.
My heart thumping painfully, I squinted, trying to decide what kind of car it was, or at least what color. It was coming from the general direction of the Lord’s Army, if my understanding of the map was accurate, but that didn’t mean that whoever was in it was friendly. Meshara had left Anathema with only one vehicle, and two missing members to chase. Considering that hoofprints would be easier to track through the dirt than tires on pavement, I held out no hope that they’d come after me instead of Grayson.
Not that I would have wanted them to. Grayson was much less able to defend herself.
As the car sped closer I decided it was a dark-colored sedan. Black, gray, or blue. I couldn’t swear it wasn’t one of the Lord’s Army’s cars, but I couldn’t imagine them coming after me. They’d be busy enough trying to make sure that no more of their own were possessed, then trying to bring peace to the souls of Naomi and Serah.
A minute later I was able to make out two shapes through the windshield. Seconds after that I realized the car wasn’t slowing. It hadn’t seen me.
Or maybe it had and the plan was to run me down.
“Meshara!” I shouted, backing toward the wrecked SUV, afraid to look away from the car speeding toward us. “Brace for impact!”
The dark car was less than one hundred feet from us when the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes. The vehicle began to skid, and the driver overcorrected. The car spun off the road into the grass and did a complete revolution before sliding to a stop at the edge of the road, its nose ten feet from the bumper of our SUV.
Eight feet from my kneecaps.
I didn’t realize I was screaming until the car’s engine died, leaving only the soft ticking from beneath its hood and the near-paralyzing sound pouring from my throat.
“Nina!” Someone was getting out of the driver’s side of the car. He wore a dark cowboy hat and jeans. “Nina!” he shouted, and I stopped screaming just as the passenger’s- side door opened. Anabelle climbed out and slammed her door, and by the time she had folded me into a hug tight enough to squeeze all the air from my body, I understood that the car’s driver was Eli.
A thick white bandage peeked beneath the brim of his hat on the left side of his head.
For a moment I could only stand in shock, and after a second Anabelle stepped back to hold me at arm’s length. “Nina, are you still…you?”
I cleared my throat. “Still me. Are you…you?” I asked, and Anabelle nodded.
“Where’s…Melanie?”
“Meshara,” I corrected. “The same demon that killed Micah. She’s in the SUV.”
Anabelle’s eyes watered and she covered her mouth in horror. “Nina, I’m so sorry.” She’d known Mellie since the day my sister had started kindergarten.
I nodded, numb in the face of her grief. “All that matters now is the baby.”
Eli’s eyes narrowed as he studied our wreck. “What happened? Is she…incapacitated?”
“Kind of. She crashed the car, and…,” I started to explain, but then my gaze flew back to Anabelle. “What about him? Is he still himself?” I was pretty sure I knew what she’d say, considering they’d been driving alone together for hours, but I had to ask.
“Yeah. He has a concussion, and he was unconscious for several minutes, but Finn confirmed that it’s still him.”
“Finn.” I blinked. “Where is he? Where’s everybody else? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. They went after Grayson last night,” Eli said, and an unexpected wave of disappointment washed over me. I wanted them to save Grayson. It made sense that they’d go after her first.
Yet the truth was that I also really wanted Finn to come for me. I wanted him to be so worried about me and so enraged to have lost me that he couldn’t not come after me, even if he lost the vote.
But I understood why he hadn’t.
Eli took off his hat and wiped sweat from his brow, his fingers brushing the edge of the bandage. His gaze kept straying back to the wrecked SUV. To whatever he could see of the monster who’d killed his brother and my sister. “Finn wanted to come after you,” he said, and I realized he’d read the disappointment on my face. “But Maddock said that Kastor wouldn’t allow either of you to be possessed before they got you to Pandemonia, because that would render you useless as bait. Then Reese said you are better able to protect yourself than Grayson is. And that even as a demon, Melanie’s speed would be hampered by the pregnancy.”
I tried to swallow my dismay and deny how badly my arms wanted to wrap around Finn. How badly the rest of me wanted to be held by him. How badly I wanted to hear him tell me everything would be okay, even though Mellie was dead and the baby had no soul and…
Wait. Meshara and I weren’t alone anymore. Ana and Eli could take care of the baby once I was gone.
Tears filled my eyes again, and I swiped at them before they could spill over. Mellie’s child would live. But I would never see Finn again.
“They were right,” I said before Anabelle could try to comfort me. “About all of it.” Yet Meshara’s hampered speed had nothing to do with the pregnancy. “Are you two alone?”
I looked past them to the car, which appeared to be empty.
“Yeah. We left first thing this morning,” Anabelle said. “As soon as Damaris was sure Eli was well enough to travel. She wouldn’t let him sleep more than an hour at a time because of the concussion.”
Meshara had taken no such precaution for me.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, glancing at each of them, but my gaze returned to Eli. “And I’m even more glad that you found us when you did. I need some help.” I headed back toward the SUV, and they followed. “How did you find us?”
“You and Grayson were carried off in different directions, but we knew the destination was the same for you both.” Eli jogged to catch up with me. “We took the most direct route and figured—worst-case scenario—we’d beat the others to Pandemonia and wait for them a couple of miles from the gate.” He shrugged. “Then we found you in the middle of the road.”
“Sorry for almost running you over,” Anabelle added. “We didn’t recognize you at first. We thought you would have made it to Pandemonia by now.”
“We probably would have, if not for that.” I waved one hand at the totaled vehicle. “And that.” I opened the door wider and motioned for them to peer inside just as Melanie’s stomach began visibly contracting again. “The baby’s coming. And that’s not even our biggest problem.”
Eli took one look at Meshara, then removed his hat and dropped it onto the driver’s seat. “How long has it been?”
“We’re not sure, but the contractions are three minutes apart. I think she’s getting close.”
“Anabelle, go get my backpack and as many bottles of water as you can carry.” Eli turned back to me. “That’s the quietest contraction I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah. She’s a real champ.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, and he gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I’m so sorry about your sister.”
“I’m sorry about your brother. And your cousins. And your stolen horses. And the blunt force trauma.” I glanced at his bandaged wound. “So sorry.”
“Who’s there?” Meshara slurred, and Eli glanced at me in surprise as Anabelle jogged back toward their car. “Nina? Who’s talking?” The demon was looking in our direction, but her eyes remained unfocused.
“It’s Eli. He and Anabelle found us just in time.” Although, truthfully, I would have considered them equally on time if they’d arrived at any point during the previous day.
Eli frowned as the trunk of the car behind us squealed open. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s blind. And nearly deaf. She can’t taste anything. And she can’t feel anything. Which is why we’re witnessing the quietest labor in history.”
“Wait.” He ducked to peer into the vehicle again. “I don’t understand. She can’t feel anything?”
“Only some pressure in her pelvic floor, but that’s just in the past few minutes. And she’s totally blind,” I repeated for emphasis.
“Uh-oh.” Eli turned back to Anabelle and waved to hurry her. She jogged back and set the bag at his feet, then handed me a bottle of water while she opened another for herself. When she’d drained half the contents, Eli held his hands away from his body, and she poured the rest of the water over them slowly while he rubbed his hands together, rinsing off all of the surface dirt.
When the water was gone, she dug a clean rag from the bag, then patted his hands dry. “Do you have any sanitizer?” he asked as I dug through the supplies I’d laid out on the backseat. I squirted a generous amount onto his left palm from an aloe-scented bottle, and Eli rubbed his hands together again while Anabelle and I helped Meshara out of her pants.
“What’s happening?” the demon demanded, shouting as if we were the ones going deaf.
“Eli’s going to examine you!” I shouted back.
“What’s with all the yelling?” Ana asked as she helped Meshara lie on her back, then positioned her bare feet up on the headrests.
“She’s losing her senses,” I explained. “All of them. As near as I can tell, it’s some kind of disease that only affects demons.”
Eli placed one hand carefully on Meshara’s stomach, then began the rest of his exam, and I turned away, content to once again be relegated to the role of aunt—for however long it would last.
“I’ve never heard of a demon disease,” Anabelle said. “How do you know it only affects the Unclean?”
“Because no one else has any symptoms. Melanie was fine before she was possessed, and then a couple of days after Meshara took over her body, food started losing its taste and smell. After that, her skin began to go numb. Today she lost her sight and most of her hearing, and that part happened really fast.”
“Okay.” Eli turned toward us, wiping his hands on the clean cloth. “She’s nearly ready to push,” he said, and warring threads of fear and joy tangled inside me.
It’s normal, Nina, I told myself. Someone always has to die for a baby to live. Donating your soul is an honor.
The Church had been right about that much. Right?
At least you’ll get to see the baby first….
But suddenly I was scared.
No, I was terrified.
“Let’s hope it goes quickly.” Eli repositioned Meshara’s foot on the headrest. “We’re losing daylight.”
“Can she push?” Anabelle asked. “I mean, if she can’t feel the contractions…?”
Eli shrugged. “I’m hoping she’s only lost the feeling in her muscles, not the use of them.”
“So…now what?” I glanced from Meshara to Eli to the sun as it slipped deeper toward the western horizon.
Eli gave me the first smile I’d seen since “Mellie’s” fake labor had foreshadowed the real thing more than twelve hours earlier. “Now we wait for the next contraction. And get ready to meet your sister’s baby.”
I had a clean towel wrapped over my arm and a knife in my pocket. I was ready to say hello and goodbye.
“Push!” Eli shouted, and I echoed the command inches from Meshara’s largely useless right ear. Having decided that I didn’t need to actually see the miracle of birth, I’d taken up a position of support at her back, against the passenger’s-side door. I sat sideways on the bench with one leg folded on the seat, and between contractions Meshara leaned back against me.
Her hair still smelled like Mellie. She looked like Mellie. And she was about to deliver Mellie’s baby. Those subversive facts worked against me emotionally, even though I knew I was holding a demon. Cheering on a monster.
“Okay, stop!” Eli yelled, and I repeated the command into her ear. She still felt no pain, but she’d started to sweat, a clear indication of the effort her body was expending.
“When he was in Tobias’s body, Aldric said the same kinds of things,” Anabelle said, continuing our discussion of Meshara’s mysterious illness between contractions. A discussion that kept me from dwelling on the purpose of the knife in my pocket. “He only took one bite of the chocolate Reese gave him the day you exorcised him. He said it didn’t taste right.”
“I remember. He couldn’t feel his bumps and bruises either. Or that burn from the campfire. It’s safe to assume he was infected with whatever Meshara has.”
Eli’s gaze was still trained on Melanie’s stomach. He’d been amazing through the whole thing, though surely nothing in his life with the Lord’s Army had prepared him to deliver a demon’s baby, from a body that couldn’t actually feel the birthing process. “But he never went deaf or blind, did he?”
“I’m guessing he would have if he’d spent much more time in Tobias’s body,” I said. “The incubation period seems to be about two days. Meshara’s been in Melanie’s body for six or seven days now—”
Eli looked up sharply. “That long?”
“Yes, and she appears to be near the end phase—total loss of all sensory input.”
“You think this is actually fatal?” Anabelle asked. “I mean, she seems fine, other than the obvious.” Being completely cut off from th
e world through the loss of every sense she should have had.
“At the very least, it will lead to demons starving themselves, either because food is no longer appetizing or because they can’t feed themselves when they can’t see, smell, or feel their food.”
Eli glanced at Meshara again as if to confirm that she couldn’t hear us. “This disease, or virus, or whatever it is…it seems to be taking away everything demons want from the human experience. I’m guessing that’s more than coincidence.”
“I think it was engineered. By the Church.” I looked up at Anabelle. “Is that possible? Do you know if the Church has the kinds of facilities that would require? The kinds of doctors? Or scientists?” We’d all been led to believe that kind of technology—anything not required for a general medical practice—had been either abandoned or destroyed after the war.
Ana nodded slowly. “They’ve been actively—if quietly—recruiting science graduates from the universities since long before I was ordained. Rumor has it they kept parts of the Centers for Disease Control up and running after the war, to be sure they could protect what’s left of humanity from illness, which is honestly the last thing we need, after everyone we’ve lost to the demon horde.”
Though the truth was that we’d been losing humans and their souls to demons for centuries before the war began. We just hadn’t known it.
“It’s down south in Miseracordia,” she added. “Which used to be called Atlanta.”
“So it’s possible, then?” Eli said. “They could have made a disease that would…what? Take all the fun out of possession?”
“I think we’re well beyond just ‘not fun.’ ” I gestured to Meshara for emphasis. Her head was propped on my shoulder, her eyes closed. Her breathing was normal and unlabored. She was literally experiencing nothing between contractions during the most intense moments of childbirth. “The Church figured out how to isolate demons in our world just like they’re naturally isolated in their own world. Total sensory deprivation.” Thinking about that, I suddenly understood why some demons—and presumably some humans—might rather feel pain than feel nothing at all.