“Wait. Maybe I can help.” Eli stepped over the candle and headed into the hall while we all stared at him in surprise, and a second later his boots clomped down the stairs.
“I can’t believe it.” Anabelle sniffled, her eyes still red from crying. “I can’t believe Tobias is dead.”
“I can’t believe we never actually met him.” Melanie’s voice sounded strained, and she’d been staring at the floor, tears in her eyes, ever since we’d told her the news.
“Don’t be sad for him,” Devi snapped. “Be disappointed in us. We’ve spent the past two days feeding chocolate to a pint-sized monster when no one on theplanetwas more qualified to see through his disguise than we were.”
Melanie sobbed, and I slid my arm around her, glaring at Devi. “Well, maybe if we hadn’t developed a tolerance to everyday malice from overexposure toyou,we would have recognized the real danger.”
Devi stood, her fists clenched, and Finn grabbed the back of her shirt with his good hand to halt her angry advance, unfazed when she turned her glower on him instead.
“So, what’s the story with this Lord’s Army?” Grayson’s subject change was less than subtle, but it broke the tension.
“They think killing the Unclean is their life’s calling,” Maddock said, without looking away from the window, where he’d been watching both the nomad camp and the western horizon for nearly an hour. And largely ignoring the rest of us. “Yet they had no idea that by killing the hosts, they were actually just contributing to the problem.”
Finn flexed his hand carefully. “They were moving in on Aldric when we found him and fell for his ruse. Only, Eli wasn’t sure whether we’d fallen for it or were part ofit.”
“And his brother?” Mellie was no longer even pretending to read the botany textbook lying open in what remained of her lap.
“Meshara and Aldric didn’t actually possess Micah and Tobias until they got close enough to us to stage that scene at the car by killing the hosts they’d worn during the raid,” I explained. “Aldric was the bait, and Meshara hung back in Micah’s body to watch from afar. Eli followed her into the courthouse, evidently on her way to talk to Aldric, and killed her as she snuck up on me.”
“Who is this Aldric?” Devi stared at Maddock as if she couldwillhim to rejoin the group, and I almost felt sorry for her. He’d withdrawn from all of us, except for Finn, but she was taking it the hardest.
Finally, Maddock turned from the window and laid Finn’s rifle on the floor at his feet. “Aldric was Kastor’s right-hand man. Now he’s just one of millions of demons crawling over one another in their native world, desperate for a way back into ours. But he’s not going to find one, because what Kastor doesn’t want anyone to know is that whatever interworld rift they crossed to get here in the first place doesn’t exist anymore. No new demons have come into our world in more than a decade.”
What?No more demonic immigrants?
That would have been news worth celebrating if there weren’t already millions of them roaming the world in stolen bodies, devouring one human soul after another.
The rest of us were still staring at the ground in stunned silence when Devi spoke again. “And Kastor would be…?”
Maddock glanced at Finn, who gave him a subtle shrug, and I wondered what they’d just agreed on.
“Kastor runs Pandemonia,” Maddock said. “He’s not a deacon, or a president, or a king, or any kind of leader you guys would ever recognize. He’s more like a precariously perched celebrity-slash-despot. He’s in charge because the other demons are afraid of him and entertained by him, but if either of those ever stops being true, he will lose control of Pandemonia, and its Unclean citizens will be unleashed upon the rest of the world.”
Finn cleared his throat while the rest of us tried to absorb what we were hearing, and then he continued their statement as Maddock turned back to the window. “The only thing worse than Kastor being in control of hundreds of demons who don’t play by the Church’s rules would be Kastornotbeing in control of hundreds of demons who don’t play by the Church’s rules.”
For several long seconds no one spoke.
“The Lion’s Den,” I whispered, and both Finn and Maddock nodded.
Or the wolf’s den, if Deacon Bennett’s description of Kastor was more accurate.
And Kastor had Grayson’s brother. If I thought there was a chance in hell that he was still alive, I would have told her right then, but the last thing she needed was to think about her brother dying in a city Maddock had described as a demonic meat market.
“So, what does he want with Maddy?” Devi asked before I could vocalize the same question.
Maddock’s mouth opened but no sound came out, so Finn answered for him. “Kastor wants the same thing from Maddy that he wants from every exorcist. The same thing the breeders want. The same thing the Church wants. A stronger, longer-lasting host. Specifically, one capable of producing a couple more just like him.”
Which was exactly what my mother had wanted with me—until the Church had me sterilized and ruined my demonic sire’s evil scheme. Ironically, my pregnant sister wasnotan exorcist, and her child wouldn’t be one either.
A scuffling sound echoed from outside the courthouse, and Maddock turned to look out the window. “Eli’s back.”
A moment later boots clomped up both flights of stairs, and then Eli appeared in the doorway carrying a worn-soft cardboard box. Melanie looked up from her can of breakfast pears and watched him in silence, one hand rubbing her bulging stomach. She couldn’t seem to trust the new stranger after having been betrayed by the child she’d doted on for two days.
“The demons who raided our division had to abandon some of their supplies to get away. We’ve found these particularly useful.” Eli set his box on the floor and pulled out a small, stiff-looking plastic bag. He shook it for a few seconds, then tossed it to Finn, who caught it out of instinct. With his bad hand.
“That’s the kind of impulse that got you hurt in the first place.” Eli chuckled while Finn ground his teeth together against the pain, still clutching the bag.
