I couldn’t hear what the deacon was saying over the din of the crowd, but she looked poised and solemn, projecting the perfect combination of concern over the danger Anathema represented for New Temperance and steadfast confidence that we would be caught.
For a moment, as the balcony cameras panned the crowd, I panicked, sure one of them would catch me. Then I realized that no individual face would be recognizable among so many, all eager, as far as I could tell, to witness whatever spectacle Deacon Bennett had planned.
I prayed with all my heart that that spectacle wouldn’t involve my sister. We couldn’t rescue Melanie if she was on display in front of millions of at-home viewers, not to mention the live crowd.
Something touched my arm and I jumped, sure I’d been caught, until Maddock’s gaze met mine. “Over here,” he mouthed, and I followed him, elbowing my way through the crowd with my head down.
He found a spot for us near the courthouse wall, next to a giant speaker spewing the audio from the deacon’s interview. Because of the noise and the distance from the dais, the crowd was thinner there, and I felt like I could breathe for the first time since we’d passed the Grab-n-Go.
“Do you see the others?” Maddock shouted into my ear, competing with the audio from the news broadcast, and I shook my head, scanning the faces and clothes of those closest to us. But I couldn’t distinguish individual faces in the crowd. Fortunately, the same was evidently true for everyone else. No one was looking at us. No one even seemed to be looking for us. They didn’t expect us to show up where, in theory, we were mostly likely to get caught.
After the interviewer’s last question for Deacon Bennett, the giant speaker on my right played a three-beat chord and the image on the big screen changed. My breath caught in my throat when Dale’s face appeared, staring out at me from behind the counter of the Grab-n-Go. The reporter introduced him and asked him to share what he knew about the demon known as Nina Kane.
“You know, everyone acts so surprised, like she’s the last person they’d ever expect to host a demon, but that’s only ’cause they don’t know Nina like I do.”
I groaned, and Maddock glanced at me for a second, then turned back to the screen.
“I don’t know when she got possessed, but I can tell you right now she’s always been a thief. I caught her several times, here in the store, and she always tried to buy her way out of trouble, if you know what I mean. You know, with the only kind of payment a girl like that understands.”
My face flamed, as much in anger as in humiliation, and when Maddock looked my way again, I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“I turned her down, of course, ’cause that’s the right thing to do, but I’m not gonna say it was easy.” He rubbed the stubble on his jaw and frowned solemnly at the reporter. “But I have to set an example for the younger generation, ya know? I have to rise above that sort of vulgar temptation.”
The reporter nodded sagely and congratulated Dale on his prudence and self-control in the face of such corrupted morals, and I wanted to rip their heads from their bodies.
The scene on the giant monitor changed again just as a ripple of sound and movement worked its way through the crowd. On-screen, the camera zoomed in on Sister Pamela Williams as she emerged from a door in the courthouse, and when I turned to my left, there she was in her purple journalist’s cassock, just twenty feet away. She smiled and waved as two men walked ahead of her, clearing a path for her and for the cameraman walking backward in front of her, following her progress toward the dais.
I didn’t release the breath I’d been holding until the whole procession passed us without incident and Maddock and I could go back to scanning faces for Devi and Reese, which was even harder now that everyone was staring at the screen overhead and all we could see were the backs of their heads.
Then a man at the rear of the crowd turned, just feet from where I stood, and my heart thumped painfully while his gaze roamed the courthouse wall. His attention lingered for a moment on the speaker to my right, and I assumed he’d found what he was looking for.
Then he looked directly at me, and as his eyes widened in recognition, the last of my hope was swallowed by a wave of fear and determination unlike anything I’d ever felt.
The man opened his mouth to shout.
I raised my fists to stop him, and panic dumped adrenaline into my bloodstream, like fuel on the fire.
If I was going down, I would go down fighting.
I darted forward, fire surging through my veins, wondering how many of them I’d have to disable to clear a path of escape. Maddock grabbed me from behind. And that was when I noticed the stranger’s eyes.
They were Finn-green.
Maddock let me go and Finn and I squeezed between the wall and the huge speaker. With its sound projected in the opposite direction, we might actually be able to hear one another behind it.
“I found your sister,” Finn said, and before I could respond, he rushed on, and I realized he couldn’t spend more than a few minutes in the stranger’s body before someone would notice it was missing. “They have her locked in a cell, bound in the posture of penitence.”
My chest ached at the thought. How long had she been there? Did they let her up to rest? To eat? To use the restroom? “How does she look?”
“Tired and scared, but whole. The cells are opened by electronic locks, and I’ve figured out how to get hers open, but the leg irons require an actual key. Even once we find that and unlock her, we’ll have to get her past at least half a dozen cops and courthouse employees just to get out of the building. Then, of course, there’s getting us all out of town.”
“Okay. We’ll deal with the courthouse first.” I took a deep breath and looked around to make sure no one was watching. “Are there limits to your…ability? Can you take over anyone you want?” Seizing strangers’ bodies without permission felt like a fundamental violation, but there was no line I wouldn’t cross to get Mellie back.
Finn shrugged. “Anyone human. As far as I know, anyway. But I can’t get into someone who’s possessed.”
“Okay. Can you get inside someone who has the authority to just walk out with her? Like…fake a transfer or an appointment or something?”
“I think so,” he said. “They’ll probably send a security escort, but if I can get them out the back door, you guys can help get rid of the extra security, right?”
“Yeah.” I almost felt bad for anyone willing to stand between me and my sister. Almost.
“You might even be able to get a car,” Maddock added, and I could hear the excitement in his voice, even over the speaker and the buzz of the crowd. “I mean, if she has an appointment somewhere—like with a doctor, for the baby—they’d expect someone to drive her there, right?”
Finn nodded. “Okay, I’ll be back once I’ve lined up a body and a car. You two find Reese and Devi, and be ready to go when I have details.” Then Finn walked his borrowed body back to the edge of the crowd. I could tell when he was gone because the man whose body he’d hijacked stiffened, then glanced around in confusion, no doubt wondering how he’d managed to fall asleep on his feet and miss half the press conference.
We’d missed the first part too, but when I looked up at the screen, Sister Pamela was still recapping what everyone already knew about the “crisis in New Temperance,” along with the latest suspicions from investigators about where the outlaws might be hiding.
They’d found the remains of our refuge in the abandoned warehouse and were currently searching that same area for something similar in another unoccupied building.
They were way off base. Thank goodness.
“We’re going to have to go deeper to find Devi and Reese,” Maddock said into my ear, and I followed his gaze to a clique of four policemen at the edge of the crowd. Reese and Devi would have moved as far from them as possible, especially Reese, who couldn’t afford for members of the New Temperance police department to realize they didn’t know this particular brother in blue.
We slowly began to move up through the crowd, sticking close to the wall of the courthouse so Finn would be able to find us once he’d selected a police officer’s identity to assume.
While Deacon Bennett spoke to the cameras, detailing the town’s efforts to catch me and the rest of Anathema, my focus volleyed between the huge screen and the crowd. My nerves were raw, my concentration shot from the knowledge that any second someone could turn and get a good look at me. There was no quick way out of the courtyard from our position, and since they actually believed I was a demon, the crowd could morph into a mob in seconds.
We’d only moved forward about fifty feet when a rumble began at the front of the crowd. I couldn’t tell what people were whispering, but one glance at the big screen made my heart drop into my stomach.
Sister Pamela stood in front of the dais. Deacon Bennett stood next to her, having just finished her short update. In a smaller, inset screen, Brother Jonathan Sayers sat behind the anchor’s desk in a studio thousands of miles away, courtesy of a technology our ancestors had developed and the Church had long ago seized.
“Thank you so much for that update, Deacon,” Brother Sayers said. “Thoughts and minds all over the country are with those of you in New Temperance as you struggle with this horrific demonic uprising.”
Someone was moving around on the dais behind Sister Pamela, but both the light and the camera were tightly focused on her and on Deacon Bennett, so we couldn’t see much beyond that blur of movement in the artificially lit courtyard.
“Brother Jonathan, as you’ll soon see behind me, Church officials here in New Temperance are acting soundly and swiftly in the face of this rising threat,” Sister Pamela said straight into the camera. “As you well know, only the hammer of true faith can beat back the surge of evil in our midst.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Brother Jonathan said from his inset box near her head, and when I heard the familiar heavy clink of metal in the background, my heart began to thud in my ears. “What’s that going on behind you, Sister Pamela?”
She turned to her right and the shot widened so that the dais was in full view, brightly illuminated by the network’s lights. “Brother Jonathan, this is how the fine people of New Temperance deal with the Unclean.”
An “exorcist” in his black cassock was bent over the center set of calf manacles, checking the hinges for rust or weakness. A second was sweeping dust and fallen leaves from the stone platform, his silver buttons shining in the bright light.
Sister Pamela was careful not to block the view of the dais. “Deacon Bennett has gone into the courthouse to bring out the demon uncovered in the continuing investigation of the Kane sisters and the demonic subculture recently unearthed here in New Temperance. The identity of the human host of this demon has not yet been released to the public, but just minutes from now both his body and his soul will be purified by the only means we know to be effective against the Unclean.”
Oh shit. I stumbled, and Maddock caught me before I could bump into anyone and expose us both. Oh shitshitshit.
Sister Pamela stared solemnly into the camera. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, Brother Jonathan, the demon’s stolen soul must be purified by the holy flame.”
A ripple of whispers rolled over the crowd. Some people were excited, some were obviously horrified, and yet more were curious, anxiously glancing between the screen and what little they could actually see of the front of the courthouse, from which this alleged demon would soon emerge.
“His soul?” Maddock mouthed silently to me in question, but I could only shake my head, my gaze glued to the screen, my hands gripping the sides of my school slacks so tightly my fingers had gone numb. I had no idea who they were about to burn, and—as horrible as the thought was—in that moment all I cared about was that it wasn’t Mellie.
Not yet, anyway.
Sister Pamela laid one hand over her heart and looked thoughtfully, somberly into the camera. “I’m so grateful to the citizens of New Temperance for the honor of being a witness to this glorious moment.”
“I know I have chills.” Brother Jonathan’s sincerity echoed across the crowd.
I had chills too. I’d seen Clare Parker’s soul “cleansed.” I’d heard her scream. I’d smelled her flesh roasting.
It was not an honor.
“Oh, here they come!” Sister Pamela pivoted to her right, and while the crowd turned, the camera focused on a procession coming from the front of the courthouse. Half a dozen fake exorcists escorted a man with his arms cuffed at his back, his head covered by a burlap hood. His feet were bare, and he wore a white school shirt, ripped in places and stained with blood.
He was a student.
My heart beat too hard. My chest ached. My vision started to blur until I realized I needed to blink. My gaze was glued to the screen. To the man—the boy—being paraded toward the dais, stumbling, tripping, and ultimately pulled along by the “exorcists” who held his arms.
They marched him up onto the stone platform, then forced him to kneel like Matthew Mercer had knelt two days before. Like my sister was kneeling even then, in her cell in the courthouse. They slapped the metal cuffs over his legs, just below his knees, and we could hear him now, his breath hitching as if he couldn’t get enough air. Or couldn’t get it fast enough.
We watched in near silence, at least two thousand of us in person and millions at home, waiting to see his face. To see who among us knew the “demon” the Church claimed to have found. Was he a real demon, like the woman whose apartment Anathema had seized? Or was he like us—unlucky enough to have pissed off the Church, and now paying with a fabricated charge?
Could Mellie see this? Were they making her watch from her cell? Did she know how close she was to sharing this poor boy’s fate?
Deacon Bennett directed the last two exorcists in the procession to set large black plastic canisters on the edge of the dais, just feet from where the boy was locked into place, his hands still at his back, his chest heaving with each labored breath.
I felt like I could throw up.
“It turns out the demon is actually…,” Sister Pamela said as the lead “exorcist” pulled the hood from the doomed boy’s head, “…the father of Melanie Kane’s unborn child.”
Oh no, no, no…Please, no.
The camera zoomed in on Adam Yung’s face, bruised and bloody. His left eye was swollen shut. He’d fought someone and lost. Had he fought for himself or for Mellie?
I’d stopped searching the crowd entirely. Sister Pamela was still talking, but I couldn’t process anything in that moment. All I could see was Adam’s puffy face. All I could hear was the word he wasn’t truly saying. The word I recognized on his lips, even though it carried no real sound.
Melanie.
He was calling for Melanie.
Deacon Bennett demanded that he confess to having a demon inside him, but Adam only murmured my sister’s name into the microphone shoved in front of his face. The exorcists threw holy water over him, and he screamed as if it burned. The crowd gasped and my heart stopped beating for just a second until I realized that didn’t mean anything.
Demons aren’t hurt by holy water. Finn had said so. Because demons aren’t “unholy.” They were just plain evil.
“He’s not possessed,” I whispered into Maddock’s ear, our gazes glued to the farce of an exorcism being broadcast all over the country, live from my hometown.
“I know.” His words were so soft I could hardly hear them.
“So why does holy water hurt him?” We were taking a risk in the middle of the crowd, but no one was looking at us. They were all staring at the screen, engrossed, listening to Deacon Bennett explain that Adam was no longer the Adam Yung many of us knew. Adam was dead, and a demon had control of his body, and that demon must be cleansed from Adam’s body and his soul so he could find eternal peace.
“It’s saltwater,” Maddock said. “Burns in every open wound. That’s why they beat him first.”
“This can’t be happening.” I shook my head. “This isn’t real.” I couldn’t stop thinking it. I couldn’t stop saying it, though any minute my whispered denials could get us caught.
On-screen, the lead exorcist signaled to two others, who each picked up one of the plastic canisters. Adam’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and my heart raced in sympathy with his. The exorcist in charge stood in front of the dais, facing the crowd, and though I could only see the top of his black hooded robe from my position halfway through the enormous crowd, my view of the screen was miserably unimpeded.
“Citizens of New Temperance,” the exorcist called in a commanding voice, “please understand that Adam Yung has been absolved of the crimes of fornication and unlicensed procreation; Church authorities believe it was actually the demon inside him who committed such egregious sins. Now, those of us who love him—who failed to protect him from this monstrous evil—we must not fail him again!” The exorcist’s silver embroidery glittered in the bright lights when he raised one fist. “We must not allow his soul to be tarnished by the same demon that has claimed and defiled his body.”
“Make it right!” someone called from the crowd, and the exorcist nodded approvingly.
“Save his soul!” a woman cried, and on the tail of that, another shouted, “Cleanse him!”
I groaned as similar cries broke out all around me and Adam slumped on the dais. The camera zoomed in on his face, and I read defeat in his eyes as surely as I’d ever read his incomprehension of decimals or his affection for my sister.
The exorcist turned to face him and asked the “demon” if he had any final words before the soul he’d “stolen” was commended back into the well for the common good, purified by holy flames.
Adam took a deep breath. Then he shouted my sister’s name.
Chills raced up my spine and the world tilted around me; I was knocked off balance by the desperation in his plea.
The exorcist nodded, and two others stepped forward, unscrewing the lids from their canisters. The crowd gasped, then went virtually silent, determined not to miss a moment of the brutal spectacle.