“Only the consecrated Church members are possessed. The demons all wear embroidered robes!” He held out the plain navy sleeve of the cassock he wore, so I could see that it lacked the decorative thread pattern that a consecrated—high-ranking—Church member would have.
“Are you sure?” I ran my fingers over his unadorned sleeve as if touching it would confirm the humanity of the body beneath.
“I haven’t seen anything yet to contradict the theory. All the consecrated Church members I saw in there—including several in the jail itself, unfortunately—are possessed.”
Relief surged through me. That meant Anabelle was still human—for the next couple of days, at least. Which surely meant she didn’t know about the Church elders. If Anabelle knew she was surrounded by demons, it would have taken more than one cop to get her into the courthouse.
“We may have an ally on the inside,” I whispered, and Finn’s borrowed brows rose. “They just escorted my friend Anabelle inside. She’s a teacher, but unconsecrated. I don’t know how many of the lies about me she believes, but there’s no way she could look into my sister’s eyes and believe Mellie is possessed. If you can get to her, she may be able to help us.”
“Okay. But even with your friend, we’re short on manpower, so I suggest we proceed with stealth rather than brute force.”
“We’re not going to need either,” I whispered, and his green eyes narrowed. “We’re going to walk right in. Congratulations, Officer…”—I squinted at the name tag pinned over his chest—“Jennings. You’ve just captured public enemy number one.”
Finn blinked. “You want me to turn you in?” His dark brows furrowed, and I could practically see the objection forming. “What’s to keep them from shooting you on sight? They already tried that once.”
“They were trying to shut me up. This time I won’t give them a reason to. Even if they want me dead”—and I was far from sure about that—“they’ll want a public execution, which they can’t get until morning.”
His jaw tightened. “And after they’ve interrogated you about the rest of Anathema.”
“I suspect they’ll call it an interview.”
Finn’s grim gaze held mine. “It won’t be an interview.”
“No.” It would be torture. That’s what demons do. “But it won’t last long. With me in custody, Melanie won’t be so closely guarded. You can get her out. With any luck, Anabelle will help.”
Finn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“Glad to hear it. Did the police costume come with handcuffs?”
Finn started patting down Officer Jennings’s cassock. “Try the inside pockets,” I said, and he reached into the front of his robe through a fold across his chest and pulled out a bundle of plastic zip ties.
“Even better. Got a knife?”
Another pocket search produced a small multi-tool. A minute later, he’d bound my wrists at my back with the doctored zip ties, and suddenly the reality of what we were about to do hit me. I choked back panic and turned to look up at him, steeling my spine with determination. Necessity. “Get Mellie. No matter what. Get her out, Finn.”
“I’ll do my best. But I won’t leave you here.”
“Finn—”
“No. I won’t leave you,” he said, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he meant it. The only way for me to guarantee Melanie’s survival was to fight for my own.
Committed to the course and running out of time before the fake-exorcist contingent returned from the town gate, we rounded the building again and I clenched my fists at my back to keep them from shaking as “Officer Jennings” marched me through the front door.
Two other cops stood guard just inside, and we’d made it fewer than ten feet across the marble floor of the large, open lobby before one of them shouted for us to halt. “Jennings!”
Finn turned with me slowly, cautiously, his hand on my arm more comfort than restraint, and I wasn’t surprised to see both of the other officers aiming guns at me, feet spread in identical “on alert” stances.
“Where…? How did you…?” the older of the two said, and I swallowed my fear along with deep, slow, quiet sips of air. Both of the officers were unconsecrated. They were human. I didn’t want to hurt them, but they were clearly willing to hurt me.
When Finn obviously didn’t have answers to the questions they couldn’t seem to complete, I opened my mouth. “I turned myself in,” I said, and both guns swung upward, aiming at my head in sync. “He was the first officer I saw.”
The one on the right—his name tag read “Lonnigan”—pulled a radio from the belt around the waist of his cassock and pressed a button. “This is Lonnigan, at the front door. Officer Jennings has just brought in the prime fugitive. Repeat, Jennings has brought in Nina Kane. Over,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
The moment he let go of the button, a cacophony of shouts and orders erupted from the radio, and the other cop made some slight correction to his aim. At my head. A door opened down the hall, and rapid, heavy footsteps clomped toward us. A second later, we were surrounded by armed men in navy cassocks, and my throat suddenly felt as tight as my chest.
“Thank you, Officer Jennings. We’ll take her from here.”
Finn’s hand fell away from me, and another replaced it in a rough grip. Metal clicked all around me as more guns were cocked, and when the new hand turned me, I found myself looking into a face I knew from the news. “Chief Kaughman.” My gaze traced the white embroidery climbing the center of his cassock and scrolling around his broad sleeves.
He was possessed.
“Nina Kane. I have to say, I’m surprised to see you here.”
“She turned herself in,” Officer Lonnigan said, and the chief nodded without even glancing at him.
“And why might she do that?” he said, looking at me even as he directed his question to Lonnigan.
“To give my friends a chance to get away,” I said, and surprise flickered behind the chief’s eyes. “Did it work?”
When he didn’t answer, I knew it had. If the other members of Anathema had been captured or killed, he’d want me to know. He’d want to see my pain as the news sank in.
“Why would a demon protect her friends?” Lonnigan asked at my back, and the chief’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Why would a demon even have friends?”
“It wouldn’t. It doesn’t. Demons cannot feel camaraderie or affection.” Chief Kaughman executed an abrupt about-face and made a stiff motion with one hand. “It’s lying.”
“Or I’m not a demon,” I called after him. I turned to glance around at the other officers. “The chief’s right about demons being unable to feel affection, so if I’m a demon, why would I voluntarily walk into the courthouse? It couldn’t be to help my nonexistent friends escape, and it couldn’t be to save a sister I can’t possibly care about from purification by holy flames. So why am I here? Unless maybe I’m actually human, and the Church has been lying to you all along, about more than you can possibly imagine, and you all burned an innocent boy alive this afternoon!” My voice rose with each word until I was practically shouting, and fresh tears filled my eyes with the memory of Adam’s merciless, senseless death.
“More demon theatrics. Actors, every one of them. Bring her this way,” the chief called, without looking back. “And if she doesn’t shut up on her own, shut her up.”
A second officer took my other arm, and as I was dragged down the hall after the chief, I glanced around at the men aiming guns at me and was relieved to see that not one of the cops—other than the chief—wore embroidered robes. Anathema’s distraction had done exactly what I’d hoped.
The courthouse was vastly understaffed, and almost all the Church members surrounding me were unconsecrated.
As I was hauled through an unmarked open doorway, blinking away my tears, I glanced down the hall toward the front of the courthouse, hoping for one more glance at Finn, but “Officer Jennings” was nowhere to be found.
>
***
The small interrogation room was cold and relentlessly bright, and I could see nothing but the white walls ahead and to my sides, and the white ceiling above me. A door opened at my back, then clicked shut, and the hiss of the heater vents from the hall gave way to stern silence. Footsteps came toward me from behind—two sets. One clicked like heels, and the other clomped like boots, but my ankles had been shackled, then secured to the floor beneath my chair, so I couldn’t turn far enough to look.
“Nina Kane.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it until the owner stepped into sight on my right and pulled out the chair across the table, tugging down on one green-embroidered sleeve of her gray cassock.
“Deacon Bennett.” Fear tightened my throat, and I fought the urge to swallow. I’d seen her face and heard her voice nearly every day of my life. She was a prominent figure at every official ceremony and civic function—the pinnacle of purity, devotion, and unwavering faith. Deacon Bennett was the public face of New Temperance and its highest authority. I’d been taught to respect her—or, at the very least, to fear her—by every news clip I’d ever seen and every word out of every one of my teachers’ mouths.
Staring up at the deacon from across the table, even knowing that she was a demon and that she was willing to kill my sister to get to me, for just a second I had to fight an overwhelming urge to look down—or worse, to beg for her forgiveness.
“How thoughtful of you to turn yourself in, Nina,” she said, the grave authority in her voice sharply edged with scorn. “I’m so glad for this chance to talk before officials from Umbra come to haul you off.”
Officials? From the capitol? I tried to shield surprise and confusion from my expression. “You’re not going to…deal with me here?” Fortunately, I planned to be long gone with my sister before anyone from Umbra could possibly make it to New Temperance.
“Are we sure she’s secure?” Deacon Bennett asked, and whoever was behind me shuffled his feet against the floor.
“Her hands were bound when Jennings brought her in. We added leg shackles, bolted to the floor. Not even a demon in his prime could get out of that chair, Deacon.”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “That’s exactly what she is, Officer. Leave us.”
The cop’s boots clomped behind me, and then the door closed. Deacon Bennett sank into the chair she’d pulled out, and suddenly I was at eye level with the woman—the demon—who ran New Temperance. Who represented my hometown on a national level. Who’d threatened to burn my sister alive.
“You’ve become a national vexation, Nina Kane. A cankerous sore on the face of this good town.” Bennett leaned back in her chair, her embroidered bell sleeves hanging low as she crossed her arms over the front of her cassock. “Perhaps if your assassin playmates hadn’t dragged New Temperance into the national spotlight, we could have kept you under wraps, but it’s too late for that now, so no, we will not have the pleasure of ‘dealing’ with you here. Your sister, however…She remains under my sole authority.”
“She has nothing to do with this. Would I be wasting my breath if I ask you to let her go?”
“Both your breath and my time.” Deacon Bennett cleared her throat and sat straighter, as if for an official pronouncement. “After a thorough examination of your sister, the Church has determined that though she is guilty of several very egregious sins, she is not possessed. Naturally, she’s eager to demonstrate the purity of her soul, so that there can be no doubt that she was neither involved with nor aware of your demonic exploits.”
I understood from her tone and bearing that I was hearing the official statement of my sister’s fate, almost exactly as it would be broadcast on the news the next morning.
“Melanie will be joining the Church to atone for her sins. She will make a public pledge in the morning, and we will expedite her ordination, for obvious reasons. She’ll be branded before the sun goes down tomorrow night.” Bennett’s brows rose almost imperceptibly, and she leaned forward a little in her chair. “How soon she is consecrated, however, will depend on what you tell me in the next few minutes.”
“And by consecrated, you mean possessed.” Was the deacon saying I could delay, but not prevent, my sister’s possession? If I stood no chance of protecting Mellie’s soul, why on earth would Bennett expect me to cooperate? “We both know you’re a demon.” I studied her reaction for any sign of surprise. I found none.
“And we both know your mother was a breeder—the cockroach of our species, content to crawl around in the dark rather than commit to the cause and live in the light.”
What cause? I frowned, searching for meaning in an unfamiliar phrase. Was she claiming the Church had some higher purpose? Had the demons begun to believe their own propaganda?
“So let’s concentrate on what I don’t know,” she continued, while the gears in my head ground conjecture into mental sawdust. “Will your sister be an assassin?”
That was Bennett’s second use of the term. “Is that what you call exorcists?”
Her brows rose over cold, dark eyes. “It’s what you are.”
“Why does it matter whether or not Melanie’s an exorcist if you’re going to possess her anyway?” Then, suddenly, I understood why my information would only affect how soon my sister was possessed.
I was bred to be my mother’s next body. She’d specifically sought out an exorcist to be my father so that she would—she’d hoped—give birth to an exorcist, which implied that she’d wanted to possess an exorcist. Presumably because we were stronger and faster than the rest of our species. But only after we were triggered.
“If you possess her before she’s triggered, she’ll never be an exorcist.” My guess held the confidence of certainty. “Whoever gets her won’t get super speed or strength.”
“Nor the ability to burn her enemies from their human husks.” Bennett’s eyes practically flashed with greed in anticipation of such a skill.
“You want her for yourself, don’t you? And I’m guessing Umbra will let you have her if you hand me over peacefully?” Which would mean forgoing my public execution and her chance to show the world that a seventeen-year-old “demon” hadn’t gotten the better of the deacon of New Temperance. “But you’re only willing to make that deal if Mellie’s body will be a step up from what you’re wearing now.” I glanced pointedly at her aging human shell.
Otherwise, the loss of her position and her power as a deacon would mean little.
“Will she?” The demon leaned forward to study me through narrowed eyes.
“How am I supposed to know that?”
Bennett frowned. “I saw your mother’s body. It wouldn’t have degenerated so quickly if your genetic gifts had come from her, so they must have come from your father. Your birth certificate names your mother’s late husband.” She opened the file on the table in front of her and glanced at the first page, then dropped the cover back into place. “Oliver Kane. Melanie’s reads the same. But if the late Oliver Kane had been an exorcist, or even a healthy normal man, he probably wouldn’t have died of…”—Bennett opened the file again, though that was probably just for show—“pneumonia, at the age of twenty-seven. The prevailing theory on your father’s death is that your mother poisoned him.”
I shrugged, trying to look like I was unaffected by hearing about the murder of one of the few people in the world who’d ever shown me kindness. “Sounds like he got off easy.”
“Who was your real father, Nina?” She looked straight into my eyes, and I could practically feel her hunger—for both my soul and my information. “More important, was he Melanie’s father as well?”
“Why should I answer that? What’s in it for me? Or for Mellie?”
“Nothing.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest again. “Tomorrow you’ll be on your way to Umbra, where the prelate will…well, he can’t exactly wear you, after your picture has been all over the news and you’ve been declared possessed. But I have no doubt he’ll
find some use for you before he sees fit to turn on the camera and light a match. If you hadn’t already been sterilized, you might have been able to prolong your life by around nine months so your genetic gift might be passed on. But my point is that your fate is sealed, as is your sister’s. Her child, however…”
My voice came out low and more threatening than I’d ever heard it. “You’re threatening to kill my sister’s baby if I don’t cooperate?”
“I’m promising to let it live if you do.”
“Not good enough. I don’t want him raised as a ward of the Church. I don’t want him ordained or consecrated. Ever.”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened. “Fine. The baby will be sent to a children’s home somewhere outside of New Temperance.”
I studied her face for one long moment. Then I listened to my gut. “You’re lying. If Melanie’s an exorcist, her child might be too, and you won’t lose him. Which means I have no reason to answer your question.”
Bennett leaned back in her chair. Then she smiled slowly, an expression absent of warmth. “It was worth a shot.” She shrugged, and the gesture looked foreign and careless on a body I’d never once seen cast off the restraints of authority and formality. “We are a patient species. We’ll lock her in a cell for two years and see for ourselves.”
“But you have to make a deal with Umbra now, don’t you?” Long before she would know whether or not Melanie was an exorcist.
The demon’s scowl was as good as an answer. “If you’re not going to cooperate, I have only one more question: Why did you turn yourself in, Nina Kane?”
“I came for my sister.” I gave her a shrug to hide the fact that I was twisting my hands behind my back, tugging on the restraints Finn had already weakened with his borrowed knife. “But before I go, I think I’ll make time to kill you.”
“Foolish child.” The deacon shook her head slowly, like an instructor disappointed by ignorance. “I cannot die. With or without this body, and this world, and your arrogant ambition, I can never die, just as I was never born.” She stood, her eyes glinting with demonic light, and I twisted my hands faster, harder, as her speech became more formal, her posture more dignified. “My native language has no word for youth, because in our native realm we have not your cycle of birth and death, nor the waxing and waning of seasons, nor even the concepts of growth and decline. There are no more and no fewer of us now than there have ever been or will ever be, and that unchanging number is sufficient to swallow your world whole, ten times over.” The deacon glared down at me, and I made my hands go still so she could not notice my efforts. “We are both eternal and unchanging, and your simplistic human languages—all of them—lack the vocabulary necessary to express the tedium of millennia spent in stasis.”